SuitabookCarrie’s War
Nina Bawden
- Reading
- Consider reading a few chapters at a time, pausing after tense household scenes or discoveries. Revisit the legend and Carrie’s assumptions near the end, and invite the reader to distinguish evidence, fear, rumour and interpretation.
- Themes
- Displacement and belonging: Carrie and Nick leave wartime London and must settle among unfamiliar adults and communities in Wales. The situation foregrounds the emotional and practical effects of evacuation rather than presenting it as a simple adventure.
- Guilt and responsibility: Carrie believes a childhood action caused disastrous consequences and carries that belief into adulthood. The narrative examines how a child may take responsibility for events beyond their understanding, while later information complicates that belief.
- Power, kindness and control: Mr Evans controls the children’s household and disputes Hepzibah’s place after a property-related death. His controlling behaviour is contrasted with kindness and hospitality elsewhere, inviting attention to how authority affects less powerful people.
- Worth knowing
- Be ready to discuss wartime evacuation, an intimidating adult, bereavement, social vulnerability, guilt, a legend about an enslaved African child’s death and a house fire. The story also includes a character described in outdated terms relating to intellectual disability.