THE COHESIVE STRENGTH AND POWER OF FAMILY LOVE
"My approach to reviewing JOE AND NELLY was different from any book I have ever reviewed before – on Amazon, Audible or Inkitt, or just a review for myself: I tried to think as me as a child 10 – 16 years old, or my own child or grandchild, if I had one, at that age, and what impact the story would have on me, or them. As I start reading I speculate about you, Kim, did you, your Mum or your Nan live through these times? There is a truth and a perception here in your wonderful evocation of time and place that seems to go beyond research.
This is a rare find for modern children to read. Children who have no concept of the world before TV, computers, the internet or the mobile phone; of a world where bombs rained down on London, where children were sent off to Wales for their safety in a steam train, and where you went to an outside lav. Cohesion of the family unit, love of king and country, of a willingness to lay down one’s life in the protection of those things because it was the ‘right and proper thing to do’, the importance and value of family love, protection and support, all these elements are richly detailed in a lovely, tender story of two children reaching out to connect across the barrier of death.
Granddad is a good strong patriarchal figure who would exemplify many of his kind in those years. The characters are finely drawn and you feel you know this simple, typical family. In many ways this is not just a ‘kid’s book’.
I believe that many people of our age group, born in the mid-thirties to the mid-fifties, particularly in the UK and here, in Australia would relate to, and be touched by, the unfolding of events, have a wry smile reflecting on a bygone era and quietly brush aside a tear that comes unbidden to their eye.
Thank you so much, Kim, for sharing this moving and carefully woven story with readers around the world. I wish you every success with it, and I am delighted that I did not quickly pass it by, as would normally have been the case. If you enjoy my novel THE PRICE TO PAY half as much I will be well satisfied.
Kind regards,
Eric (Eric J. Drysdale)
My email address is: ericjdrysdale@gmail .com"
