Hattie Hearn Books

This book was a gem of a read. It has become my favourite book about World War 2 and was very popular with my Year 6 class. It is a large hardback and was bigger than expected (154 pages of tales), which was a wonderful surprise!

The contents page is full of what the true tales will be about, in addition to telling us about the key events of the war, in chronological order. The clues in the titles led to natural discussions and predictions about what the tale could be about, and were sometimes a red herring as they thought ‘The Guinea Pig Club’ would be about guinea pigs; however, it was a twist they were not expecting.

As a class, pupils enjoyed voting for a tale to share, with favourites being ‘A Bear Called Wojtek’ and ‘Rip the Rescue Dog’ – as stories of animals in the war are of particular interest to children and they were shocked to learn that a bear was enlisted into the Polish army as a private and fought alongside the soldiers! Each page is a visual delight, with some smaller illustrations, to whole page illustrations – it is a book that could be shared under a visualiser to get a full impact or for small groups to share.

Even those who know a lot about the Second World War will find something new in this book. A must-have for any class learning about World War 2.