August 1939: Thirteen-year-old Poppy Brown is evacuated to a village in Dorset. Tired and frightened, she arrives with nothing but her gas mask and a change of clothes to her name. Billeted at a grand country house, Poppy is received with cold indifference above stairs and gets little better treatment from the servants. Lonely and missing the family she left behind in London, Poppy is devastated when she hears that they have been killed in the Blitz. Circumstances soon force Poppy to move to the suburbs and into the company of strangers once more. Earning a meagre income as a hospital cleaner, as the war continues to rage, Poppy longs to do her duty. And as soon as she is able to, she starts her training as a nurse. While the man she loves is fighting in the skies above Europe, Poppy battles to survive the day-to-day hardships and dangers of wartime, wondering if she'll ever see him again...
To me this was a great read, probably you had to live in those years like I did to really appreciate it, My Mother too was bombed out and we also lost everything we had, although my Mother and sister were dug out safely from the cellar shelter, I was in the North of England at the time, although returned to London in 1942 so saw a lot of the war myself, I was 12 years old so fully aware of what was going on. I will read more by this author.
This ia a book my sister left with me when she went back to England. I found it so entertaining that it was hard to put down. I know a lot of what Poppy went though as I was evacuated during the war also, so I can relate with the uncertanty.
A charming story, I'm a sucker for a bit of romance in a story. Once had started the book I couldn't put it down again. I'm fascinated by war stories and I think if you enjoy reading about this kind of thing definitely recommend this.
I picked this book up thinking it was a historical novel, but didn't see that it was for Young Adults. I found it rather predictable and corny. Personally, I need a bit more punch, more to get my teeth into, but I am sure teenagers would like it very much.
I have a few issues with the age of the girl in the book. As the story starts Poppy Brown, an evacuee from London goes to stay at the home of the rich Carroll family. She is only 12 at the time. She gets a big old crush on the son of the house who is in his early 20s at the time.
He signs up to the airforce and for the most part treats her as the child she is. Poppy has much to deal with as the war takes it's toll on all of them, including most of Poppy's family dying in the blitz. Forced to move back to London for a while, she is still only 15 at the time she is courted by fellow Londoner, Dennis. He is also in his 20s. Even at the conclusion of the book she is still barely 17.
Painfully boring. I'm a sucker for WW2 novels otherwise I wouldn't have read it. This book suffers from a lack of imagination. The sentences are bland, the plot itself is tiresomely long-winded and Poppy (the heroine) is depressingly shallow. Very few details are included about her (or indeed anyone's) personality. Another thing I was annoyed about: this is supposed to be a love story. At the beginning of the book, Poppy is 13. She remains as a teenage evacuee for almost half the book. The second half is rather rushed. In fact, the hero doesn't explicitly declare his "love" for Poppy until 30 pages or so from the end. I don't think I would reccomend a book like this to anyone. Unrealistic conclusions, tedious descriptions and Poppy's tiresome aura of perfection make it the perfect novel to irritate me (or anyone sane)
For its genre (the entire genre is my guilty pleasure!) I thought this was a really good read. All of this kind of book tend to have happy endings so in that sense, you kind of knew what was coming, but it was less predictable than most. It also didnt have an illigitimate pregnancy which is a very repetitive plot line! I;m not sure i felt as sorry for Poppy as i was meant to - but still enjoyable. Good, light read.
Beautiful book. Was different from the usual crazy thriller books I am reading. Poppy's love is encouraging although it was hard to imagine her being 13 years old, because of her thinking. But it was simply beautiful and I couldn't stop reading it.
Poppy Brown is one one of millions of English civilians who were evacuated out of London into the countryside in September 1939. Like so many of those evacuees, she was a child from London’s East End. She was 13 and was shipped to Dorset. Taken in the wealthy Carroll family, Poppy finds herself neither upstairs nor downstairs, while she is struggling with the transition from child to young woman. At various points, she is neglected, expected to work for no wages, and treated as a pet. The one constant in her ever changing world is Guy Carroll, the son of the house. At first he sees her as a child, while to her he is her first great crush. As the war toils on, Poppy grows up and is bounced from Dorset to London as the war and the whims of the Carroll family take her. In the end, she finds herself as the one true friend of the family, keeping them together as they all wait for Guy to return from the war.
Verdict: Poppy’s travels provide a terrific perspective on the home front both for the average person and the wealthy. At the same time, Poppy’s War contains a very sweet romance inside the pages of a lovely historical story of World War II on the English homefront. Highly recommended.
A dozen flat superficial characters who all have nondescript names A smidgeon of class friction A war Some pilots and mentions of some soldiers Archetypical country house Puerile, expressionless sentences Some tragedies Plenty of cliches and tired out platitudes Evacuees Unrequited love Some completely Hardyesque (ie. completely unbelievable) denouements So called "happy" endings
Bland them all together (yes, that's bland), use many of the ingredients quite a few times, stick a cover on it with a picture of a plane and a pretty girl, give it a title with the word "war" in it, and away you go.
Sorry if I gave too much away about this attempt at a novel but we've all read it many times before. Usually when we are at school. Little school. It's just that I'd hate anyone to think there was anything slightly entertaining, original or even adult in this book. Safe to say I didn't enjoy it at all. But then I don't read "The Sun", or watch soap operas. Millions can't be wrong, can they?
I love this book...I say that for a lot of books but i read this one three years ago and i still remember it. Lily Baxter is a great author...This story is about a girl named poppy who is sent to the countryside when the war begins. She meets a handsome guy and falls in love. But she can't have him because he is engaged...it is all about her struggle and its totally heart wrenching ! I totally recommend this book
Found this at a Half Price Books one day ... the synopsis on the back sounded interesting, but the story on the inside was simply okay. 2 1/2 stars, if I could give it.
The novel takes up about five years of Poppy Brown's life, from age 13 to 17, and we see her grow and mature on the home front while dreaming of the love of her life and hoping he will return to her. A simple, cheesy, and predictable story, with a happily-ever-after ending that ties up all the loose ends.
realy a compelling story in the times of the world war where the children were to evacuate and how some of them had to live, i would reccomend to read this book toroughly, with the wildest your imagination can get, that way the story can become clear and you can realy get a good image about what is going on.
3.5. written by DILLY COURT. Maybe that is why I read a few conversations between characters in other books, almost verbatim. Predictable and sometimes sappy, but a typical saga of wartime England. The ending came round too quickly considering the time spent on daily events, I thought.
1939 wird die dreizehnjährige Poppy Brown aus London evakuiert und aufs Land nach Dorset geschickt. Sie ist eine von drei Millionen Menschen, die während des zweiten Weltkrieges die Hauptstadt und anderen Großstädten verlassen, um den Bombardierungen zu entgehen, und findet Aufnahme auf Squire's Knapp, dem großen Anwesen der wohlhabenden Familie Caroll.
Poppy teilt nun das Los vieler anderer Kinder: Allein und weit weg von ihren Eltern, mit nur wenig Hab und Gut, leidet sie unter der Trennung und weiß nicht, ob sie ihre Familie im Londoner Stadtteil West Ham jemals wieder sieht. Sie ist verängstigt, und die Bewohner des Hauses, insbesondere die unterkühlte Mrs. Carroll, machen das Leben nicht unbedingt leichter für sie.
Einer der Lichtblicke ist jedoch Guy Carroll. Poppy schwärmt von Anfang an hingebungsvoll für ihn, wenngleich er für sie unerreichbar scheint. Denn da ist zum einen seine Herkunft, zum anderen Amy, Guys Verlobte. Ungeachtet der Umstände nimmt diese Poppy unter ihre Fittiche und wird zu ihrer Verbündeten. Poppy hängt an ihr und hebt sie auf ein Podest. Umso größer ist ihre Enttäuschung, als Amy, die Person, die sie immer für einen Engel gehalten hat, vor der drohenden Gefahr außer Landes flieht und damit Guy ebenfalls im Stich lässt, der in den Krieg zieht.
Auch Poppy muss nach London zurückkehren, weil sie dort gebraucht wird. Während die Jahre vergehen, der Krieg kein Ende zu nehmen scheint, wächst sie zu einer hübschen jungen Frau heran, die sich neuen Herausforderungen stellt und an ihrem Ziel arbeitet, Krankenschwester zu werden.
Was hält das Schicksal noch für sie bereit, und wird sie Guy eines Tages wiedersehen?
Lily Baxter hat sich bei Poppys Geschichte in "Wiedersehen in Dorset" von den Erlebnissen ihrer eigenen Mutter inspirieren lassen, die das Los jener Kinder teilte, die wegen der Bombardierungen fernab ihrer Familie aufs Land geschickt wurden. Es ist zu spüren, dass die Autorin daneben zudem eigene Kindheitserinnerungen in die Handlung einfließen lassen hat. Diese liest sich mit Leichtigkeit, der Schreibstil fordert den Leser aber auch nicht. Das eine oder andere Mal fehlt es zudem an Ausdruckskraft, und mit Hinweis auf die Übersetzung ist es eher fraglich, ob ein Wort wie „schnieke“ im Englischen Verwendung findet.
Zwar wartet das Geschehen mit ein paar Wendungen auf, ist hingegen im Ganzen nicht überraschend. Vielmehr überfrachtet Lily Baxter das Schicksal von Poppy und driftet dadurch - wenn auch nur im geringen Maße - ins Sentimentale ab. Etwas weniger Dramatik wäre hier von Vorteil gewesen.
Auflockernd für den Erzählfluss ist das Auftauchen bestimmter Produkte der damaligen Zeit. So gibt es unter anderem Pralinen von Rowntree's und Cadbury's Nussschokolade, Brylcreem-Pomade und Gibbs-Zahnpasta, es werden Woodbines und Kensitas-Zigaretten geraucht und „Run, Rabbit, Run“, „Any Old Iron“ und „Knees up Mother Brown“ gehört.
Hinsichtlich der Figuren hat die Autorin ein Augenmerk auf ihre Hauptfigur gelegt. Im Wesentlichen gelingt es der Autorin gut und in einem soliden Rahmen, Poppys Entwicklung vom unsicheren und zurückhaltenden 13-jährigen Mädchen aus der Arbeiterklasse zur selbstbewussten jungen Krankenschwester im historischen Kontext der Kriegsjahre darzustellen sowie ihre charakterlichen Eigenschaften deutlich zu machen. Gleichfalls überzeugt sie mit der Beschreibung der Empfindungen ihrer Protagonistin.
Poppy hat das Herz am rechten Fleck. Da sie aus ihrem vertrauten Umfeld herausgerissen wird, ist sie zunächst verunsichert, zumal sie, die eigentlich immer viel Trubel um sich hatte, nunmehr allein und sowohl ohne Familie als auch Freunde dasteht und sich behaupten muss. Dies ist von Erfolg gekrönt, so dass Poppy mehr und mehr Verantwortung übernimmt, ihre positiven Züge wie Großherzigkeit und Hilfsbereitschaft verstärken sich. Auch verliert sie nie die Freude an den einfachen Dingen.
Die Liebesgeschichte wird angenehm zurückgenommen erzählt. So spielt auch der Part von Guy eine kleinere Rolle, füllt diese aber entsprechend den Vorgaben aus. Gleichwohl entspricht das Bild von Guy dem eines britisch unaufgeregten jungen Mannes seiner Kreise, der geradlinig und ehrenhaft handelt, seine Pflicht gegenüber dem Vaterland erfüllt.
Daneben fügen sich die Nebenfiguren mehr oder weniger intensiv ein und beleben das Geschehen.
Die Geschichte unterhält mit einem manierlichen Plot, der im Ansatz, das Schicksal einer jungen Frau in Kriegszeiten zu schildern, durchaus positiv zu werten ist. Allerdings vermag sie es letzten Endes nicht, den Leser durchgängig zu begeistern und so nachdrücklich in Erinnerung zu bleiben.
Poppy's War is a very light historical romance set in Great Britain during World War II. Poppy is a young girl who is evacuated from London to a country manor. The book follows her experiences with the family who has taken her in and then advances to her return to London.
The idea of this book was much stronger for me than the execution. There were several plot twists that I found unnecessary and hard to believe. The characters were not very well developed, and most were actually unlikable. But the part of the book that was most problematic for me is that more than one adult man had strong romantic interests in a young teen who was only between the ages of 13-17 in this novel.
This story takes place in England as World War II unfolds in Europe. It is about a young girl evacuated from London to the country for safety and who winds up living with a well to do family. We follow her story for several of her teenage years and the experiences she has with the people in her life. It is an interesting story of what people can go through during wartime, their interactions and relationships. I felt this was an extremely long story to read. It is not a war story with all sorts of action, sabotage, resistance or fighting. It is war on the home front and how one person in particular grew up going through her teens during an unsettling time of history.
This is such a Good book! I bought this thinking that it was a story about a nurse, but Poppy was a very sweet person that ended up doing some nursing and alot of filling in wherever she was needed on the great estate. The writing is excellent & the storyline is one I wish could go on to further books! While I usually only get books on Kindle Unlimited, this one was at an affordable price. I Very Highly Recommend This Book & hope to read more from This Author!!
Although many books have been written about children sent from the city to the country on the verge of WWII, the author in this story has you grow along with Poppy throughout her life and hardships there. She begins as a young teen and we watch her grow into womanhood.....surviving conflict, tragedy, and a recurrent call of Cupid's arrow. Would recommend....
Fluff interpretation of WWII and evacuees. Yes, there were some troubles but the books wrapped up with a neat, tidy bow and everyone lived happily ever after. It was a pleasant diversion but not entirely realistic. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just go into reading it knowing this is a light read.
I enjoyed this book so much that I read it in two days. Poppy was an engaging heroine. The plot was unusual and the background of World War II was well developed. It was a sweet love story and so engaging you felt you were there, right along with the characters.
Would have easily been five stars because of the historical description of what it would have been like to be an evacuee, however the main character and romance were very “twee”. Never less a good and easy read.
It's one of those books you know instantly you are going to love. I hadn't heard of Lily Baxter before but soon realised she is actually Dilly Court, a talented author who I admire greatly. A really good story and characterisation, highly recommended for those who like stories set around wartime.
This is one of my favourites I’ve had for years. Re reading it now I’m older makes me me realise it’s actually not that great of a book cos there are a LOT of plot jumps. Still enjoyable though. Very nostalgic
beautifully written. gripping story. one I couldn't stop thinking about and wondering at the outcome. definitely a page turner, one I had issues putting down. I really loved Poppy. she really shows a flare for what a lot of Brits went through during the war years, something we shouldn't forget. I'm glad he got her happily ever after.