Private Peaceful – Michael Morpurgo

“I’ve seen larks over no-mans land. I always found hope in that.”

I read this book because I was telling a boy I baby-sit for how I had suddenly found myself extremely moved by books about the war. I recommended he read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and, in return, he gave me this book to borrow.

Tommo Peaceful is just a child when the story begins. His father has passed away and he lives in England with his mother and his older brothers, Charlie and Joe. On his first day at ‘big school’, Tommo meets Molly. He falls instantly in love with her.

As Tommo, Molly and Charlie grow into young adults together, Tommo realises that his brother has fallen in love with the same girl. Worse than that, Molly returns his love. In a moment of madness and full of eagerness to prove that he is not a little boy anymore, Tommo signs up to join the army. Desperate to project his brother, Charlie signs up too.

From the start we are aware that things go wrong for Charlie and Tommo. Parts of the book are written in the present tense, whilst the rest is reflecting on occasions from their childhood. Tommo’s musings over his current situation divulge enough that we know that he has found himself in an incredulous situation, the details of which are not revealed until the last few pages. I anticipated predictability, but the ending is politely surprising, desperately sad and, as is mostly the case with novels for young people, there is teaching behind it. I don’t want to divulge too much more in case I ruin it for anybody.

This is a novel for older children, so it’s easy to read. If you had a day you could probably manage it in one. Even as a ‘grown up’, I can confess that I did learn something from it.

It isn’t so overly horrific that you couldn’t give it to your teenager. I think it would probably make them think more carefully about the sacrifice boys not much older than them made during the war and, in my opinion, that can only be a good thing.

If you’re an avid reader then I’m not sure you will like this, unless you are extremely open minded or a teenage boy. If you don’t plan on reading it but you have been left intrigued as to what happened, then feel free to ask me about the story. Or Google it.