Blitzed

by Robert Swindells

George is fascinated by World War Two. Bombers, Nazis, doodlebugs. But he discovers the reality is very different from how he had imagined it when a school trip to a World War Two museum leads to a timeslip - and George is in London at the time of the Blitz!

He joins up with a group of other homeless children, struggling to survive. And then they suspect someone they know of being a German spy....

Genres: Time Travel, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Childrens, Historical, Science Fiction

Audible Audio

First published May 1, 2002

About the author

Robert Swindells was born in Bradford in 1939, the eldest of five children. He left the local Secondary Modern School at fifteen to work as a copy holder on the local newspaper. At seventeen he enlisted in the RAF and served for three years, two in Germany. On being discharged he worked as a clerk, engineer and printer until 1969 when he entered college to train as a teacher having obtained five 'O' levels at night-school. His first book 'When Darkness Comes' was written as a college thesis and published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1972. In 1980 he gave up teaching to write full time. He likes travelling and visits many schools each year, talking and reading stories to children. He is the secutatry of his local Peace Movement group. Brother in the Land is his first book for Oxford University Press. He is married with two grown-up daughters and lives in Bradford.

Author description taken from Brother in the Land.

Reviews

[Aydin Ahmet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very interesting and cool.This book is about a kid that is into WW2.So he goes to a WW2 museum and accidentally goes back in time to WW2

[Niloufar · Rating 2 out of 5]

گاهی که ذهنم آمادگی درگیر شدن با شخصیتها و داستانهای پیچیده نیست میرم سراغ داستانهای نوجوانان یا فانتزی و غالبا هم پشیمون میشم
اما این یکی داستان به نسبت خوبی بود و از خوندنش راضیم
داستان پسریه که عاشق داستانهای جنگ جهانی دومه و اطلاعات زیادی در این مورد داره ویه روز از مدرسه به نمایشگاه اردوگاهی جنگ جهانی دوم میرن که در طی این بازدید به گذشته و اون سالها سفر میکنه و با شخصیتی به نام ماما که علیرغم سن کم ، سرپرستی چندین بچه رو به عهده داره آشنا میشه و درکنار اونها ماجراهایی براش رقم میخوره...
در خلال این داستان توصیفات خوبی از سختی های جنگ برای قشر نوجوانان داده شده که دلپذیر بود

[Vong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever wondered what it would be like to travel back in time and live to tell the tale?

Lucky school boy George (last name?) did just that, whilst on a school trip to the Imperial war museum he is transported back in time! Initially he thinks of this as a big adventure, a journey into history. However, he meets a family (Ma who is only a few years older than he is) and begins to see the harsh effectsof the reality of war.

The characters are believable and the locations exist today in London, for example the bomb that went off in Tooley St under London bridge. There is a plaque.
This is a wonderful book that brings history to life and appreciation to London.

Great story for older years. I read this with a year 6 class as apart of their 'quiet reading time' and they loved it! Its got so many great links with the literacy strategy/ art and phse.
Recommend!

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Georgie Weatherall is a schoolboy with a love for all things World War Two. After a trip to Eden Camp with his family he learns that his new topic at school is World War Two! He loves telling his class mates all he knows and eagerly takes home a letter about a trip to Eden Camp. In the meantime, he has to fix a fence he broke that belongs to an elderly neighbour who seems familiar to him...

On the trip Georgie disappears...he finds himself in London during his favourite time period...the Blitz. He soon realises it is not the exciting time and place it always seemed to be. He soon realised that London during the Blitz was a frightening place to be. He met a group of children who were separated from their parents and had made a family of sorts in the basement of a bombed pub. Nicknamed ‘Frecks’ by the group he soon becomes part of their group and does all he can to be accepted. With them he experiences loss and adventure while trying to make sure he doesn’t say anything to give himself away! The story tells of 2 weeks in wartime London...will Georgie find his way home?

Blitzed is brilliant. I think it would be a great book to engage children in older primary classes in a topic on World War 2 and with its short chapters and engaging storyline would hopefully capture the imagination of even the most reluctant reader (one chapter was only 1 page long!) it could also be a great starting point for a geography/history project looking at some of the places and events mentioned and children researching whether they really exist/happened.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

George is a 21st century boy, mad about World War II, and up to mischief with his friends. He is studying the war at school too, and goes on a school trip to a museum, but then the unthinkable happens and he experiences a timeslip, finding himself back in 1940s London during the blitz. Here he must make new friends and struggle to live through the horrors of the war as it actually was, and at the same time there is a mystery to unravel.

Robert Swindells is an excellent children's author and once again he pulls off a great and memorable book, with a good and satisfying ending.

Oh and memorable quote from this book:

"Emily gets the giggles. She’s seven, thinks trump’s the ultimate swearword."

Little did George know that one day Emily would probably be right.

[Ellie Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the fact that this book is showing the reader what life was like for those in the world war through a first person account but in a different way

The main character was a 'fan' of world war II memorabilia and would often look at the tragedy with rose tinted glasses until he was put into the situation through a time slip and realised just how horrific it really was.

In this book you honestly feel like you are right there with these people and the way the author writes makes it like you can feel the panic and devastation as the bombs start hitting the streets. The descriptions of the streets and the aftermath of the attacks is really detailed and emotive, and I like how this book is educating kids.

[Diana Lava · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟
I really enjoyed reading this, I am due to teach it in September to year 7 and I think it'll be such a good read. The tone is really fun, but very serious when it discusses the sections in The Blitz. I like that there isn't a lot of dithering around how Georgie got to the past, he just deals with it and tries his best to survive and not mess up history and go back home.

[Liss Marchant · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10 book, i read it when i was in year 6 and have been obsessed with ww2 ever since,

its such a captivating story, where there is a time slip and he has to live life as a child from the blitzed with no family and no evacuation plans.

[Tamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Alex Baugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is 2002 and Georgie Wetherall loves two things - knowing all about England in World War II and creeping. Creeping? That is when you “streak across a row of back gardens, over fences, through hedges, across veg patches...without getting caught or recognized.” (pg13) And he especially likes leaving Miss Coverley’s garden is shambles. Georgie knows she doesn’t like him - she's always watching him. So when he has to repair her fence post as punishment for his last creeping adventure, Georgie discoveres she watches him - it seems he reminds her of someone, but who?

All this is forgotten, however, when Georgie’s class goes on a trip to Eden Camp, a former POW camp turned into a WW 2 museum of 29 huts each dedicated to one aspect of the war. Hut 5 is a realistic replica of a bombed street in London during the Blitz. The sounds and smells add to the realistic atmosphere - but wait, it is perhaps a little too realistic. In fact, Georgie suddenly finds himself transported back to wartime London.

Finding himself faced with the real deal, cold, hungry, lost and scared, Georgie wanders around until he finds a friendly searchlight crew who give him something to eat. After living through a night of bombing in a public shelter, Georgie notices four kids emerging from a bombed out pub. He and the kids starting talking and they tell him he can stay with them as long as Ma approves. Ma turns out to be a 14 year old girl who watches over orphaned kids in the pub’s basement.

Ma has a job in a second hand shop owned by what she believes to be is a Jewish refugee from Germany called Rags. But when Georgie discovers a radio transmitter locked in one of the shops upstairs rooms, they begin to suspect that maybe Rags isn’t who they think he is. And they decide to find out exactly what he is up to with that radio transmitter. Trouble is, Rags begins to suspect Ma of snooping in his stuff and decides to find out what she is up to. So Georgie, with Ma and the other orphans, is on a wartime adventure he never dreamed possible.

I liked this coming of age time travel story. It is told in the first person, and the author maintains the voice of a 12 year old boy throughout giving it an authentic quality - quick, witty, full of colloquialisms from 2002 that are questioned by the folks from 1940. I also found Georgie's reaction to his predicament refreshing. In most time traveling stories, kids end up in a different time and place and seem to assimilate so easily. But for Georgie, it isn’t just a jolly adventure. He worries throughout about not getting home, not seeing his parents again. As wartime London loses it romanticized aura and becomes reality, it causes Georgie to experience real reactions like throwing up more than once and even to peeing himself at one point.

But it is also a story of survival, complete with a cast of orphan characters right out of Dicken’s London, who become Georgie’s family away from family, helping him adjust and carry on. And most importantly, helping him see the reality of war.

Blitzed is a fast but wonderful book. The chapters are only a few pages long, but the events are exciting, making it an ideal book for a reluctant reader and certainly one that would appeal to boys as well as girls.

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by LaLeesha Haynes for TeensReadToo.com

World War II and the atrocities of the London bombings seem a lifetime away for most young people. In BLITZED, George is a young man who has the opportunity to truly understand the fear and chaos that war can bring.

While on a school trip to a WWII museum, George is transported back in time to learn more about the world that he is so fascinated with in the year 2002.

At first, George is excited and anxious to learn more about his city's history, but then he begins to see the realities of war. During his trip he meets other young people who touch his heart and teach him to appreciate the gifts that today's world has given him.

Food rations, danger, and fear were commonplace during World War II, and that is brought to light in this "ghosts of time past" tale. The characters are believable and it brings to the surface a wartime London that can be forgotten in the midst of other atrocities of the era.

Overall, it is a great story that truly makes the reader think about the difficult times that WWII brought, not only to Nazi Germany, but also to the world as a whole.

[Adam Twyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exciting, if a little predictable and slightly stereotypical children's adventure story for the modern pupil. The book is balanced somewhere between the wit and sarcasm of newer texts like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the boundless adventurous spirit that I remember from older stories like The Famous Five, the Narnia series and Malory Towers, and appeals to the pupils on both of these levels. I found the book very difficult to read aloud to the children, something I do a great deal, and I could never quite put my finger on why. The prose is well written and the story absorbing but something about the grammatical structure and punctuation made it difficult to create the real storytelling flow. None the less, my pupils loved it and it is an invaluable aid to learning about WW2 as it contextualises and provides an alternative perspective on the often visited themes in this unit of study, particularly the Blitz and the morale of the British people throughout it.

[Sammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a kids book but it's a good kid's book, the reason I read it was because I loved Robert Swindell's stories when I was younger and I'm into Time Travel. I've gave it to my nephew and led to a long discussion on WW2, it was hard work.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for school.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Are the sentences in this book sentences- or just pints. I didn't even get to chapter 2... it was so annoying, like reading the points that would later make up the story

[Fatima · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was amazing

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great car journey listen