Fireweed

by Jill Paton Walsh

Bill is a fifteen-year-old runaway evacuee, and he's finding that surviving on the streets of London is pretty easy, thank you very much. He's fed by a local cafe owner, he earns some cash as a barrow-boy in Covent Garden, and sleeping in the Underground air-raid shelters is cosy - if a bit smelly. Things get more complicated for Bill with the arrival of Julie. She's a runaway too, and although she's a bit posh, she's just as determined as Bill to stay free of interfering parents and 'the social'. But although it's fun for a while to duck Jerry missiles and camp out in bombed-out houses, the reality of living through the Blitz quickly begins to set in. Winter is coming, and Bill and Julie will discover that playing at being grown-ups can be a very dangerous game....

First published in 1970, and winner of that year's Book World Festival Award, FIREWEED evokes a time of tin Spitfires, powdered eggs, warm woollen mittens and reading by firelight. Perfect for readers young and old, this book is a beautifully written classic, full of adventure, heroism and British wartime courage.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult, World War II, Historical, Childrens, War

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Jill Paton Walsh was born Gillian Bliss in London on April 29th, 1937. She was educated at St. Michael's Convent, North Finchley, and at St. Anne's College, Oxford. From 1959 to 1962 she taught English at Enfield Girls' Grammar School.

Jill Paton Walsh has won the Book World Festival Award, 1970, for Fireweed; the Whitbread Prize, 1974 (for a Children's novel) for The Emperor's Winding Sheet; The Boston Globe-Horn Book Award 1976 for Unleaving; The Universe Prize, 1984 for A Parcel of Patterns; and the Smarties Grand Prix, 1984, for Gaffer Samson's Luck.

Series:
* Imogen Quy
* Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

“All around me there are open acres, acres of ruined and desolate land, where the bombs fell…it’s quiet and beautiful, for into this wilderness the wild things have returned. Grass grows here, covering, healing, and russet sorrel in tall spikes, and goldenrod, swaying beside broken walls, full of butterflies, and purple loosestrife, and one plant, willow herb, that some people call fireweed, grows wild in this stony place as plentifully as grass…It is a strange plant, it has its own rugged sort of loveliness and it grows only on the scars of ruin and flame.”

A beautifully-observed, bittersweet tale of the growing friendship between two teenage runaways, Bill and Julie, who are striving to survive during the London Blitz. Paton Walsh’s story’s marvellously detailed, an intricate depiction of wartime London, that explores forms of community and the divides of age, class and nationality that undermine it. Ostensibly written for children, Paton Walsh’s narrative works well as a novel for all ages, largely because of the quality of her writing and her sensitive approach to her material. It’s an absorbing and ultimately, for me, intensely moving representation of crisis, memory, trauma and the journey towards healing.

[Emmkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-issue of an atmospheric short 1969 novel for young people about two teenagers during the Blitz, with a preface by Lucy Mangan that’s best avoided until after due to spoilers. Fifteen year old Bill is alone in London, having bolted from the village to which he’d been evacuated. When he encounters Julie, he quickly recognizes that she is alone too, and together the two teens try to evade both bombs and the attention of authorities who might try to move them to safety. The writing is evocative and vivid in its descriptions of bombings, ration books, and dislocation.

The gender roles taken on by Bill and Julie are interesting and probably in keeping with the times, as he directs her to make him tea and she engages in homemaking activities. There are also class distinctions between them, as well as between them and some of the helpers they encounter. I did find a final dramatic scene a bit stagey and abrupt, but there was a lot to recommend it. 3.5.

“Remember? I can still smell it. I met her in the Aldwych Underground Station, at half past six in the morning, when people were busily rolling up their bedding, and climbing out to see how much of the street was left standing. There were no lavatories down there, and with houses going down like ninepins every night there was a shortage of baths in London just then, and the stench of the Underground was appalling. I noticed, as I lurked around, trying to keep inconspicuous, that there was someone else doing the same. I was lurking because I wanted to stay in the warm for as long as possible, without being one of the very last out, in case any busybody asked me tricky questions. And there was this girl, as clearly as anything, lurking too.”

[Benjamin Duffy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was ten when I read this book for the first time. It was recommended for me by my elementary school librarian, who knew I was into military history at the time, and who in hindsight was very clever to use this book's setting during the London Blitz to get me to read a story I otherwise never would have. Smart lady.

For me, this book was the beginning of knowing and appreciating the painful beauty of a sad (not how you might imagine, so I can say that without spoiling anything) ending. It was also the first book that exposed me to the essential unfairness of life, and the way people face it, in a deeper sense than "Travis having to shoot Old Yeller." At first, I hated it. It was the first book I ever read that wasn't wrapped up with a neat little bow at the end, and as such was a shock to the ten year old Ben, whose literary diet of the time mostly consisted of non-fiction and Judy Blume-level kid lit. And oh, how I hated that ending. I writhed, pinned under it. I thought about it for weeks, fantasizing it turning out differently, composing a dozen alternate fanfic endings in my head, until one day I just stopped. Something in my preadolescent mind just clicked, and all of the sudden I was okay with it. In time, I even came to appreciate it.

I've been in love with the bittersweet ever since.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two teen-age runaways who refuse to be evacuated from London struggle to survive the blitz of 1940. Very well-written, and highly recommended.

[Ellie L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best war time stories that I have read, whether this be aimed for adults or children, this was a superb book that I would love to use in school. Walsh tells story of two children trying to survive during the Blitz in London. Originally alone, the pair work together to stay alive amidst the dangers of bombs, as well as evading the threat of being evacuated to the countryside. Although this friendship was first one of convenience, it strengthens as the story progresses, and it is clear that the two characters begin to mean more to each other.
It cannot be unstated how perfectly Walsh captures the sense of chaos and loss tightly tied to living during the war time period. Survival comes in many forms, for some through continuation and maintaining control and order over their lives, no matter how small. For others, the weight of responsibility can be crushing, and it was very striking to see how such pressure impacts the protagonist. Hope quickly turns stale, merging into anger and desperation at having little support to turn to. There is a lot to be said about societal expectation when contrasts are drawn between responses from adults and children.
For both the characters and the reader, this is an emotional inner journey, which would genuinely be very rewarding to use within school. There are chapters that I felt burned out of the page and have hovered in the back of my mind since reading. Walsh has embedded some intriguing themes within the narrative, particularly social class and absent parents, which would allow for excellent discussion in terms of how the two main characters progress according to these themes.

[Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

its really good

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is perhaps 3.75 stars, not quite four. (My opinion has changed, see below.) I love her writing; such beautiful prose, so concrete and direct and carefully measured, and yet it is clearly in her control, for the dialogue sometimes leaps over the lines when the characters are overcome. Her descriptions of London during the war are very good, she captures the confusion of it all, and the strength of people without, I think, undue sentimentalising.

So why not five stars? Hmn, that is a good question. I think I should have thought it better if it had worked on two levels; the book is from Bill's point of view, and thus Julie is only seen from his knowledge, and so at the end when she discounts their relationship, it is very hard to know what to make of it. Yes, we see how Bill sees it, and we see how the many years later (six or more) he comes to realise that perhaps more was going on than he understood. But... I think better still if I as the reader had seen Julie so clearly that I knew precisely why she said what she said, and understood it as he could not. Even at the end, all he wonders is if she was lying to her brother so that they could still see each other, without considering other things which might have been happening for her. A lack of agency, perhaps, that Paton Walsh cannot overcome in the point-of-view she chose? I can think of many reasons why Julie might have disclaimed him, from her mother's statement that she is a child (and thus does not understand how Bill feels , who despite the same age is already a man), or the class barriers, or that she is afraid -- but the book does not give us enough of Julie for us to know, and the 'child' argument does not hold up in the rest of the narrative -- and how does a girl of her class know how to clean up a house and make dinners anyway? So yes, it reads very well, and there is a strand of emotional truth in it, but I think it comes apart a little when one begins to think too much. Also, I think it is quite possible that being an American woman born in the 70s, I miss some nuance around the class/gender lines that was there when Paton Walsh wrote it -- she being a British woman born in the 30s writing in the 60s.

Edited July 2015 -- I added another star, because this book has stayed with me so strongly. So definitely a 4 star work.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

this ending is so frustratingly bittersweet but other than that, it was a super read. short but still entertaining :)

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend Barbara introduced me to Jill Paton Walsh at a CLNE Institute (Children’s Literature New England). I’ve read many of Jill’s books and admire her greatly. Finding Fireweed in the Negril Branch Library was an unexpected surprise. This YA book was published in 1969.

It’s set in London during the blitz. Two homeless teenagers, Bill and Julie, become friends as they cope with changes in a once familiar landscape. Jill writes beautifully:

We walked for hours the next morning. We didn’t want to cross Hungerford Bridge back into the part of London we knew. There were lots of poor little streets over there, all knocked to blazes. Clouds of thick dust hung over the crushed buildings and made a haze in the air everywhere. And it was all horrifying. The houses weren’t abandoned and boarded up; there were people everywhere. They scrambled around on piles of rubble or came in and out of battered houses, carrying things. There were piles of furniture on the pavements; women sat on doorsteps, dabbing swollen eyes with the hems of their aprons; puzzled and frightened children clung to them. We saw two women come staggering out of their house through a great hole in the wall, one carrying a dusty aspidistra in a pot, the other carrying a mantelpiece clock. They were smiling. (p. 65)

A woman came out of the van. She was wearing a blue overall cap. Seeing us standing staring at it, she called out, “You can have a bath in five minutes, dearie!”

A bath! The very thought of it! We waited. She went off down the road and knocked on doors there. Soon more people were waiting, and women came up with buckets and were given hot water from a tap. When the cubicles were ready, they gave us towels and soap, and we had showers to bathe under. It felt marvelous to be clean again. I put on my last clean shirt, but it was horrible putting the other clothes back on, all gritty with dirt….(p. 66)

I wanted the houses I knew to be back up again; I wanted grown-ups to be there. I wanted to be told what to do; I wanted to be worried about. I didn’t want to have anyone else to care for; I didn’t want anyone to need me at all. I wanted to be back in Wales being yattered at and given hot buns for tea; I wanted to be safe. I wanted my own father; I wanted my father, my dad. (p. 70)

[Mathew · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most honest and bravest books that I have read for children about the blitz. Written during what Townsend calls 'The Second Age of Children's Books', those post war years which saw the development of quality of literature rise due to library buying and high expectations with regards to quality, Fireweed (1969) was one of the first of those swathe of excellent war-themed books from that time with Carrie's War (1973) and The Machine-Gunners (1975) coming a little while later. Extraordinary really that such an accomplished writer does not have the same space or place in our canon.
As with all of Paton Walsh's works, she has high expectations of her readers in terms of content, action, vocabulary and themes but they will surface from a far richer and rewarding reading experience for doing so. The closing two chapters of Fireweed are highly charged, emotionally, and will stay with me for a long time with her making some strong comments of both class and tenderness.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two teenage runaways find each other in London during the Blitz. Julie never boarded the shop heading to Canada with many other children, and Bill ran away from the farm where he was sent for his safety.
The two find a condemned house and another child, and try to find a sense of normalcy amidst the danger and chaos. Of course, things don't end well, and the ending is both satisfying and bittersweet.

[Ross Nugent · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eye opening story of life in London during the blitz.

[Maureen Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a slowish start, this story of two young people who have, for different reasons, fled the arrangements their families have made for them during the blitz in WWII London. The idyll of two unsupervised teens ("Yet all around us death and ruin rained out if the sky. We saw it everywhere, and we were afraid like everybody else, and yet it cast no shadow in our hearts.") is short-lived. They each make decisions that change the course of their lives and, especially that of a young child orphaned by a bomb near the basement where they hide.

Walsh evokes the smells and sights and shocks of wartime London all the while developing the characters and providing unpredictable but believable plot twists.

I will recommend this title to my readers of WWII fiction. It's a worthy, intimate balance to battle stories and triumphant tales of heroes.

[Rachel Brand · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my favourite books when I was about nine, and I still love it. I think this is possibly down to all the descriptions, and the idea of people moving somewhere new - in this case, Bill and Julie move into a basement and turn it into a home. I was also really interested in the World Wars as a child (an interest which I probably got from my dad).

This book is rather unusual for a children's book, as it has a fairly sad ending. I can't think of any other books which I've read which have a sad ending, least not one which still makes the book enjoyable.

[James Lark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I last read this as a young teenager and I remember how grown up it seemed: a little younger at the time than the story’s narrator Bill, he radiated confidence, using words like ‘bitch’, shaving like an adult, setting up home with a girl in a relationship that hinted at another kind of self-awareness. This was a much more ‘teenage’ novel than the second world war fiction I’d grown up with ('Dawn of Fear’ and 'The Machine Gunners’ and the like).

It reads very differently through adult eyes. This is a tough story that is most heartbreaking because it is about two children, struggling to convince themselves that they’re coping on their own but failing to cope. It is about loss of innocence and yet the protagonists remain innocent, naïvely seeing the people who can most help them as their enemies, too young to realise how much they are floundering, or what they might be sacrificing. The scene in which Bill sees his father from a playground has haunted me since I first read it and for good reason: the sense of regret, a tiny moment of life-changing significance, hangs heavy over the book, and although the brief epilogue has a conciliatory tone, there is a bleak lack of resolution to all but the central relationship, which is itself ultimately symbolic of a wider futility.

In that sense, I was quite right to remember this as a grown up book: its depiction of harsh realities in a harsh world is as vivid as its unflinching depiction of the blitz. But the voices that reach out of the story are nothing if not childlike, and the book is all the more powerful for that.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fireweed was an interesting one that retrospectively reminds me a lot of Grave of the Fireflies. A situation in which two young people are thrust into a bleak wartime scenario and must fend for themselves, largely due to their own youthful pride and stubbornness. The book is set during the second world war and the worst of the Blitz, following 'Bill' and Julie, two teenage runaways.

Much of the book is focused on their developing relationship - more a friendship and their developing trust than romantic until the late stages of the book - and exploration of scenes from the period, and their ingenuity in surviving alone on the streets while evading the authorities who have their best interests at heart.

It's certainly bleak in terms of tone - things are described simply and economically, in keeping with the attitude at the time. A few horrific scenes are displayed which through this economy managed to make an impact on me, and there is a gradual sense of their degrading condition that is encapsulated by their adopting of a lost child, who they are incapable of looking after and becomes malnourished and sick. Finally, there's a feeling of cruelty by the world against them - the book ends in a deliberately unsatisfying end that results in lifelong regret for the narrator based on a mix of a misunderstanding and the same youthful stubbornness mentioned before.

A well constructed and emotionally engaging piece of historical fiction that is unsentimental, but not inhuman.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book may have lost some of its potential impact with the middle school crowd since its first publication in 1969, but it still has much to recommend it. It is the story of two 15-year-olds fending for themselves in London during the Blitz. Through vastly differing circumstances, Bill and Julie form a bond as they try to dodge detection by the municipal authorities and live on the streets with their wits and the sweat of their brows. Along the way, they form a bond that evolves slowly toward a nascent romance before circumstances beyond their control intervene. The author keeps us on the edge of our seats right through the bombshell climax and then, oddly enough, ends with a whimper of a denouement. It could be argued, in fact, that the last two chapters largely suck the wind out of the novel as a whole as they lay bare some of the plot holes that might otherwise have escaped notice. But the sheer power of the climax is what saves this novel from mediocrity, along with the vivid descriptions of what life was like for the inhabitants of London during that period of time. Whether any tale about WWII will resonate with kids today is up for debate; it may well be that so much time has now passed that the war has been reduced to the status of a pure abstraction for many young people. And while I would not recommend this for classroom teaching, I do think it deserves mention on extracurricular reading lists.

[Tara Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I so wanted to love this, having discovered it by way of Lucy Mangan’s “bookworm”. Perhaps it’s because I’m reading it now, aged 40, that I like it so much less than I wanted to.

The characters are well drawn. I read it easily and quickly and I desperately wanted to know what was going to happen next but then the ending just happened, poof and it was over. I realised the ending wouldn’t be happy from the Lucy Mangan review but actually I’m just irritated that having drawn two likeable characters that the author stopped it so suddenly and in a way that just doesn’t really fit with how I could ever imagine it being.

3 stars for the first 90% (I read it on kindle) if it had carried on as well it could have had a 4 or a 4

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alone in London during the Blitz, "Bill" and Julie team up together to survive, eventually even acquiring a toddler before the collapse of Julie's aunt's bombed home separates them again.
Really quite a pleasure to reread and I didn't remember the details at all. In the 1970s I would booktalk it as survival, but it's also a first love story. what's most notable is the point of view --or perhaps voice. It's all "Bill's" story and he is as oblivious as you might expect of a 15 year old, often jumping to wrong conclusions. Fireweed grows over and heals -- and time has healed him, we learn in the end. The class differences are probably obvious to an English reader -- and a part of the remarkable coming-together in wartime this story portrays -- but were not as obvious to me.

[Matthew Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poetic and shocking novel about two teenagers, Bill and Julie, surviving by themselves during the London Blitz, Fireweed is by turns breathtaking and heartbreaking. Bill is poor, and angry; Julie is posh, and determined not to be evacuated to Canada. Author Jill Paton Walsh sets these two characters down in the midst of some of the worst bombing raids of 1940, and spares us nothing: there’s a hair-raising account of being caught in a bomb’s shockwave, a hallucinatory walk through the streets in the aftermath of a night raid, and a numb, excruciating wait while a rescue team digs through the remains of a ruined house, looking for survivors.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really nice book about teenage autonomy, set in London during the Blitz. The fifteen-year-old narrator goes by the false name of "Bill" after escaping his evacuation quarters in Wales and returning to London in hope of seeing his soldier father on leave. He teams up with the girl Julie, who was rescued from a torpedoed ship heading for Canada. This is a survival story with a very well rendered historical background.

[Luigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an easy read book about what it was like to live in London as a kid during the Blitz. Very readable and very correct. If you're looking for a coming of age book, you may not find what you want, but if you want a believable read about what it was like in London for a teenager in the 1940's, you might just enjoy it like I did.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read but with so much detail and emotion. It would be a fantastic addition to a WWII topic in a primary school! My only gripe would be that it seemed to end far too quickly and cleanly, and I don’t feel satisfied that the relationship between Bill and Julie came to any kind of continuation or completion. A few more chapters would have been nice!

[Helen Firminger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this more on re-reading it. So delicately described and under-stated as it would be through the eyes of a young teens. The horror of bombs, deaths and explosions so present from history, and so real in relation to so many countries in our apparently civilised era. Its all set against the sense of coming of age and the stupid decisions that teens and adults can make.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mixture of bleakness and daily happiness that grabs you in the guts. I found it slightly irritating that Bill had to make a choice - why not both? Did he lose his father forever?Made me want to read Goodnight Mr Tom again as similar feelings evoked but more hope at the end.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am, after reading this, still a bit hesitant to share it with my Year 5 class. There are elements which are extremely dark and distressing so I will need to carefully choose who I am happy to lend it to.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the story of the main character’s relationship is foremost, it is the descriptions of LOndon during the Blitz which are the highlight of this book. The author gives lots of details about every day life that make this a fascinating read.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books from my, and my mother's, childhoods. Every time I think about it, I get chills down my spine. I first read it aged 10 - reading my mum's copy from the 1970s - and revisit it to this day in my early thirties.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good concept for an interesting story and generally well told. The ending is very anti-climactic, disappointing and limp.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. It will stay with me. It's one of the books on the school reading list for my 10 year old and I can totally see wby. Top tip - Do not read the foreword as it gives the story away.