SuitabookSkylark and Wallcreeper
Anne O'Brien Carelli
- Reading
- If wartime peril or a relative’s memory loss may feel personal, preview the opening together and agree on pauses. Afterwards, compare the two timelines and ask which kinds of courage the story values.
- Themes
- Family memory and inheritance: Lily cares for Collette during evacuation and learns about her grandmother through the hidden pen and letters. The story appears to treat family history and care as important, but the full emotional resolution is unclear.
- Courage under occupation: Young Colette delivers messages, counts German soldiers and helps derail a train while living under Nazi occupation. The narrative presents Colette’s actions as adventurous and brave, but the broader judgement of their risks and consequences remains unclear.
- Helping during crisis: During the evacuation, Lily helps nursing-home residents, searches flood-affected New York for the pen and receives help from friends. The situation foregrounds practical assistance and friendship, though the book’s treatment of duty, limits and personal cost is not fully known.
- Worth knowing
- The story includes flooding, evacuation, memory loss associated with dementia, Nazi occupation, secret Resistance work, threatened arrest and torture, sabotage, and an exploding cigarette case. The intensity of these scenes is not fully established.