The Time School series follows Jess, Nadia, Ash and Tomma as they navigate their way through the first year of Secondary school whilst experiencing what life was like during pivotal moments in history and learning about their ancestry.
Ideal for those who love historical fiction, time travel and books about friendship, the series is upper middle grade, aimed at children aged 9-13 years.
Series order:
Time School: We Will Remember Them
Time School: We Will Honour Them
Time School: We Will Stand with Them
Time School: We Will Comfort Them
Setting:
The children live in the village of Kirkshaw and attend Hickley School in the nearby town of Hickley. Both places are fictional but based on the town of Heckmondwike, where the author grew up, and the nearby towns of Dewsbury and Batley. This area in West Yorkshire is a few miles south of Leeds, populated by former mill towns, where remnants of the woollen mill trade and Victorian industrial revolution are still evident.
Characters:
Jess Chadwick – lives with her mum, dad and older brother Declan. Jess is quiet and thoughtful, sometimes shy but with a lot of empathy and natural intuition.
Nadia Kaminski – is an only child. She has Polish grandparents on her dad’s side. Nadia is confident, outgoing and outspoken, sometimes a little too much.
Ash Mundair – is the oldest child with a younger brother, Sunil and sister, Anit. Dad is an immigrant from Uganda. Ash is witty, charming and chatty. He’s often seen as a joker, reserving his serious side just for his friends.
Tomma Handley – is also an only child. Mum is Croatian. Tomma is quiet but confident, a serious soul and deep thinker who cares deeply for the people close to him.
Periods:
Book 1, We Will Remember Them takes the characters back to 1918, just before the end of the First World War. The children experience what life has been like for those living through a war that they have very little knowledge of. Nevertheless, there are food and fuel shortages and concern for the male members of their families and community who are away fighting on the front line. In this story, they meet Martha, a young girl the same age, and who befriends them, taking them in when they have nowhere else to go.
Topics: World War One (homefront), empathy/kindness, friendship.
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Book 2, We Will Honour Them finds the children back in March 1947 during a notably harsh winter in the difficult years after the Second World War. In this story, they meet Marcel, a Polish boy who is experiencing targeted bullying because of his heritage. The children experience the harshness of the post-war years of uncertainty and continued food rationing during one of the worst winters on record.
Topics: World War Two (aftermath), immigration, bullying, friendship.
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Book 3, We Will Stand with Them is a trip back to 1973 and a chance to meet with Ash’s dad, his brother and their two friends. These four boys are struggling to fit into a school that is majority white at a time when racial tensions in the country are high. They are immigrants from Uganda, forced to leave their country by the dictator, Idi Amin, trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and start again in a country that doesn’t seem to want them either.
Topics: Racism, refugees, 1970s Britain.
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Book 4 Time School: We Will Comfort Them goes back to the 90s to meet a young girl traumatised by war, forced to leave her home country of Croatia to begin a new life in England. This is Tomma’s story and a chance for him find out why everything about her past is a mystery, a closely guarded secret she has never been willing to share.
Topics: Croatian War of Independence, refugees, mental health.
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