Goodnight mister Tom

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The Story:

The book is about a boy called William. William was born in London some time before the World War 2 begun. When England declared war on Germany his mother decide to evacuate him to the country. In the country, he moved in at Tom Oakley, an old man who lived for him self in a house nearby the graveyard.

Tom, who had lived alone since his wife died, is a quiet old man. He is avoiding all kind of celebrations. But when William moved in he had to change him self. From being a grumpy old man, he changed to a happy nice man who takes part in the village’s problem. He started to play the organ in the church, guard as a fireguard in case Germans should bomb the village.

When William first came to little Weirwold, he was a quiet, scared and skinny boy. He peed in his bed every night and he thought that it was a shame to go to a theater. All because he had been raised tough by his mother. His mother was a sick woman, people in London told Tom about her. They said that she was strange, that she was very hard with rules. Personally I thought that she was braindead.

William became better as the time passed by. After a while he stopped to pee in his bed and he started to talk, smile and laugh. He also met some friends. Especially one boy called Zacharias Wrench, became his best friend. They played every day, and William had never felt so happy before in his entire life.


The Language:

I find the language easy to understand. Although it is just plain written, I find it beautiful, and well thought out. I believe the language is just plain written, as queer clauses seldom appear. Below, I present a short section of the book, which I find representative of the whole book.

Much of the text is written down in spoken language, which gives spirit to the story, as the dialect of the country people is very prominent.


Characters:

The Main Character of the book is William, a boy of London. His personality and attributes change a lot through the book, which means that it is rather difficult to tell who he really is. However, I can describe him as a kind, psychically strong and talented boy. I believe William is kind because of two reasons; he never hurts anyone, and he helps as much as he can, i.e. in garden work, in taking the dog for exercise and in working with the youth paper. He is also psychically very strong. I would say that very few children survive such circumstances William lived under before he came to the country. But William did, and I find that wonderful. Finally, I find him talented; he learns quickly in school and is a marvellous painter.

A second main character in the book is the man William lives with, Tom. He is like William in the way that he goes through a big transformation. At the time William arrives, it is indicated that Tom is very lonely, and not a frequent member of the village life, but with William’s arrival he has to confront the society, and you can actually feel that he becomes more social, open minded and best of all, happier. Tom is the typical nice person that exists in almost every story.

The third character I want to mention is William’s best, and actually first, friend, Zach. Zach is a quite clever boy, and he is also hiding in the country, far away from bombs falling on London.


The Message of the book

After reading the book I found out that this book is written with a target to be liked by children, according to the fact that a book meant for children contains messages, which are very easy to understand.

A primary message of the book is that is good to be kind. That is shown by how William reacts depending who he is treated by. When he lives with someone who doesn’t treat him well, and isn’t understood as kind, he becomes broken down and unhappy. The opposite of this and something much better is to be treated by a kind person, like Tom, because then you get healthy and happy like William did. Therefore the book tells you to stay kind and love your neighbour as much as you want to be loved yourself.

The second message I have found is that it is good to follow the intention of your heart. Tom did that thoroughly several times in the story, and if he had not done that, it could have gone rather bad for William, but now he managed to live well. The motivation of the story is to follow your heart.

To summarise the subject, we can say that the book tells you to stay hopeful, kind and to do what you want.


My opinion of the book, and its messages

I have had a pleasant time readin...