The Secret Shelter
Sandi LeFaucheur
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 Brown Barn Books
ISBN: 0974648140

While excavating an air-raid shelter, London teens are suddenly back in time to WWII & the Battle of Britain.

Without homes, families or identities, carrying only the fake ration books their Mr. Schmidt had made as samples for their class project, Sophie Pinkerton & her friend, Marina, & Nathan (who answers to Quigs, as in his surname: Quigley) along with their teacher, must avoid the dangers of the Blitz: nightly bombardment by the Luftwaffe; suspicious classmates, & the authorities on the lookout for German spies. Will they survive long enough to find out how to time travel back to the 21st century?

When they'd thought of digging down through 60 years of earth to open the bomb shelter in their school grounds, Mr. Martin, the janitor, had warned them not to meddle with things past. Undeterred they find the door & open the dark, dank cave. Once inside, Mr. Martin disappears, & Mr. Schmidt falls through the rotted staircase & hurts his head.

Frantic, the friends drag their teacher out into the fresh air... except it's not the same place or time anymore. Now their school is painted a disgusting brown with all the windows covered with tape & brown paper. Then the air starts humming, a hair-raising siren begins wailing & hordes of airplanes come rumbling overhead, dropping bombs.

Up until now Sophie & Marina had been best friends, & because Quigs was a rich boy, there'd been much teasing between them. They'd all had misunderstandings about each other's families. Now with their lives on the line, what they have to go home to surprises them all.

A young mother, clutching her child who is the spitting image of Quigs, comes rushing over to them in the thunder of incoming planes, & hurries them across the road to her home. There she welcomes them into her life & tells them about her husband who is an RAF Spitfire pilot stationed at the nearby Biggins Field. That's when the friends realize they are in the presence of Quigs great-grandmother.

Esther & her son, Joseph, share their big home, spare clothes, rationed food & the Anderson shelter under their Victory Garden. She guides them in this strange new/old world, about which the teens know only too well, from their vantage point of having heard the stories of their grandparents.

In the space of a few days in the past, the friends must discover reservoirs of courage & loyalty, as the Blitz devastates the world around them, new classmates stand up for them while others bully them. & then Esther's husband's plane is shot down, & they must watch their vivacious & generous hostess & friend shrivel up with sorrow.

How will their knowledge of what is to come help them when the authorities come to take them away because they don't fit in? How will Sophie find the courage to stop a bully from tormenting a new refugee friend? How will Quigs honor the promise he gave Esther's husband? Will their German-born teacher have to spend the rest of the war incarcerated in goal? & who is the boy with eyes like Mr. Martin, who befriends Quigs? & knowing what you know, can you meddle with time?

The Secret Shelter is an engaging & authentic look back at a time I can still remember. Sandi LeFaucheur has created such a vivid child's eyeview of a desperate time that it brought me to tears. It is a time when ordinary people, with both happy & sad home lives, did extraordinary deeds, when love shone like the Sun through the clouds of war, & death & danger fell from the sky.

For ages 10 & up. Outstanding, & perfect for (great) grandparents to show (great) grandchildren what it was like.
(08/28/05)

Rebecca