Stay Where You Are and Then Leave by J. Boyne

Abstract

Boyne, John. Stay Where You Are and Then Leave. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2014. Print.John Boyce, multiple award winning author of children’s and adult books including The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas delivers another emotional yet tender tale for younger readers set during wartime.Alfie Summerfield had always remembered the day the fighting started. It was July 28, 1914, and it was his 5th birthday. It was also around the time he learned that his father would be headed to fight, having volunteered in hopes of making it easier on the family. More than four years had passed since that day, and nine-year-old Alfie thought about it and his dad Georgie all the time. The letters that his father regularly sent stopped arriving, and Alfie fears he is dead although his mother insists he is still alive. Not much is said about Georgie, though Alfie is led to believe he is on a long and secret war mission and his mom Margie cries a lot when she thinks he cannot hear her.Alfie’s life revolves around his hard-working mother Margie, skipping school, his Granny and the friends he had made in the row houses along Damley Road including Kalena and her father Mr. Janáček. After the army relocated Kalena and her father to the Isle of Man as ‘persons of special interest’ Alfie discovers that they left behind a shoe shine box. Insistent on helping his worn out mother and not keen on attending school, Alfie secretly takes a job as a shoe shine boy where one day he makes a startling discovery: his father’s name on a stack of his customer’s hospital papers, relating to a military hospital just a train ride away.What follows is Alfie’s journey to learn the truth about his father’s whereabouts. His steadfast determination to keep his family together is touching and heartfelt. This would be an excellent book to use in a classroom in relation to World War One or to be read together at bedtime so that young readers have a chance to ask questions.Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.