Erik Sagrero – The War that Saved My Life

In the book The War that Saved My Life, we are introduced to the lives of two major characters Ada Smith and her little brother Jamie Smith. The lives of these two siblings is full of hardships, but Ada is constantly being faced with verbally and physically abuse from their mother. Their mother isn’t the nicest and most supporting mother, she treats both of her children very differently. When it comes to Jamie their mother enroll him into school and gives him the freedom to go play outside but when it comes to Ada she is kept isolated from the world because she was born with a clubfoot. One day there was news that Hitler was planning on bombing London,  so Ada and Jamie ran toward the evacuation centers in hopes that they’d be able to successfully leave their mother and their unfortunate way of life. This goes in their favor because they are placed under the care of a sweet older lady by the name of Susan Smith. In the beginning Susan didn’t like the idea of having kids under her care because she was going through the heartbreak of losing her best friend but she took them in. At first Ada and Jamie thought that it was going to be the same living situation that they had grown accustomed to but it was quite the opposite. Miss Smith was the mother figure they didn’t have. Under her care they received love, care and support which were things they weren’t familiar with. In the end, Miss Smith keeps them and becomes their loving guardian.

 

I believe this text was created to encourage people to talk about real world problems that are taking place in our current society. This book can be used to teach students about problems that include war, child abuse, and social prejudice. I would recommend this book for students in the grade levels 6-8, it is not a challenging book to read and it’s written in a way that makes you want to finish reading it to find out what happens to the kids. I really enjoyed reading this book, the story of what the kids had to go through was unbelievable they had to overcome a lot of hardships.