Advent Reading Challenge Day Seventeen

A Book of Christmas Past: Share a Historical Read

I’ve always liked reading historical novels but, if they’re poorly researched or clearly bring modern sensibilities to the plot and characters, I tend to get incandescent with the authors. So I am careful about what I read and extremely careful about the books I promote to children and young people. I am always on safe ground with Paul Dowswell whose research is excellent and applied to his books with a light touch.

Today’s book is a historical read but not a Christmas one. (I decided that the challenge could be interpreted that way.) We know exactly when it is set, down to the minute. Eleven Eleven takes place on the last day of the First World War and tells of the meeting of two soldiers and an airman, one British, one German and one American.  How they come to meet and what happens to them in the few hours on either side of 11am make for compelling reading.  With every turn of the page readers will hold their breath, expecting the worst and hoping for the best.  Can the three survive until the Armistice?  Paul (in other books as well as this one) deals with war head on, leaving his readers in no doubt of its complexities and horrors. He also creates characters we care about and whose loss we mourn.