What was it like to be a child growing up in an ordinary family during the First World War? Organised like a scrapbook, this exciting book tells of the big shapes of the conflict and the way the war years were experienced by thirteen-year-old Archie and his family in London. There is a broadly chronological organisation: the events and privations of the early stages of the war and how these impacted on Archie and his family; Uncle Teddy's experiences in the trenches; the bombing of London; the final stages of the conflict, and then peace. These are conveyed and made credible for young readers by the main linking narrative in Archie's `voice'. Marcia Williams shows that the comic strip form can convey the full range of human situations and emotions - not least in her depiction of the moving story of Nurse Edith Cavell.
The book's powerful visual impact makes it original and boundary breaking. Cartoons, photographs, visual jokes, mementoes, drawings and diagrams combine to provide a distinctive reading and learning experience.