On a final note -- it did make me read just a little about the evacuee program and I had never thought about how it was mostly for poor children. BOOK DESCRIPTION:Freda is a twelve-year-old evacuee from the East End, sent to live with a farming family deep in the lonely landscape of the Fens. When young Freda comes across a wounded rare albino pink foot goose, she goes to the abandoned lighthouse where Philip Rhayader lives, and the pair of them care for it until it heals.

They are both suffering, Freda with her cold and cruel billet and Philip with his own demons which contribute to his being a conscientious objector, a difficult position to be in during war. It is the story of a evacuee child (12 year old girl) from London who lands with a horrible family and eventually makes a friend of a young (23 yr. Perhaps Hubbard is a genius and deliberately made you feel exactly what it was like to be him by letting you swirl around and around in the same thoughts endlessly but it got a little old when the other character was in immediate danger from her neglectful and abusive situation and had no power or money to change that (both of which he had in small amounts as a middle class, white, adult, male).

As the seventy–fifth anniversary celebration of the Dunkirk evacuation approaches, she finds herself flooded by her own memories of that period and she reflects on how her experiences have impacted her throughout her life.

This is a beautifully poignant retelling by Sue Hubbard of Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose, a parable of the saving grace and regenerative power of love and friendship, exploring the fundamental questions of life, amidst the backdrop of the horrors of WW2. Certainly not an easy read, but one to savour – an important story imbued with an immersive sense of place and written in gorgeous poetic prose. The author has chosen not to make these time, jumps clear by labelling chapters for example, and they came as a surprise to me. She meets Phillip, a complex and troubled young man of twenty-three, who is lonely and untethered from the world – a pacifist who has suffered a nervous breakdown and who introduces Freda to the restorative healing powers of the natural world. In fact he does more, acting with bravery and heroism – just as his namesake does in The Snow Goose – in a novel of tender quiet voices, and grace.

She was also commissioned by the Arts Council and the BFI to create London’s biggest art poem that leads from Waterloo to the IMAX. I had to look up almost all of the clothes -- didn't know what they were for sure and in a long list couldn't let them all just drift by!

Freda is evacuated to Lincolnshire from London, and lodges with a very poor, strange family who live some distance from anywhere. The two outcasts find a unique sort of sibling-like kinship in one another: together they care for an injured goose and slowly learn how to trust each other and the world, discovering the therapeutic power of art and seeking solace in nature’s riches – but how long can they keep the real world at bay? I think this would be an excellent book club choice as well and makes for a great summer read for so many readers when it goes on sale in the US in mid June.Young Freda is last to be picked and finds herself living with a grim-faced and abusive farming family, eking out a bleak existence on what seems like the edge of the world. Her friendship with Philip who shares his love for books and nature with Freda is the only happy memory Freda has of her time as an evacuee. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. I loved this book with its descriptions of the fens, nature, reading and the devastating effects of war.