Under a Fire-Red Sky

One of the truly great children’s writers of our time. Geraldine McCaughrean is still for too many something of an undiscovered pleasure.  Recommend any of her novels to new readers and they will almost certainly be coming back asking why they had never heard of her before. This latest novel does not quite have her magic touch formerly capable of turning a hitherto straight story into something stranger but always intensely memorable. But it is still an excellent read.

The author’s father was a young fireman before and during the Blitz hitting London in September 1940 and continuing for months afterwards. Occasionally derided as ‘call-up dodgers,’ regular and newly recruited fire-fighters soon faced terrible dangers night after night. Some were crushed by falling buildings, others died from smoke and fume inhalation. Young Franklin in this story is a fireman’s son, one of a quartet of children who band together after dodging the train journey intended for evacuees. Desperate to emulate his parent he ends up doing so handsomely. The three other children contribute in different ways, and there is also a dog who has his moment too. All manage to survive bombed out homes, lack of food, no education, regular air-raids and the various horrors these led to.

By always sticking to what really happened, with her story checked over for historical accuracy by London’s Imperial War Museum, the author necessarily deprives herself of any prolonged escapist moments. The end result can at times come over almost as relentless as the Blitz itself, but she does the many firefighters of that time truly proud.  Their achievements since somewhat forgotten, this powerful story puts a heroic record straight in a way readers are unlikely ever to forget.