The War That Saved My Life

I read the book The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. This book is a Newberry Honor Book. I didn't realize how much I was going to love this book until I started it. Honestly, I was kind of dreading having to read it since it was historical fiction. They say never judge a book by it's cover, but I definitely learned to never just a book only by it's genre. The book's main character is Ada who has a little brother named Jamie. Ada was born with a disability labeled as a club foot, and her mother only sees her as disabled. Ada's mother doesn't allow Ada to go outside, and treats Ada horribly. Things have always been awful for Ada, but she hadn't even realized how awful it was for her until she got out of the abuse. The title fits the book perfectly because if it wasn't for the war Ada wouldn't have had anywhere to run away to. All of the children in the town were being sent away from London for safety from Hitler and his armies. So, Ada used this opportunity for her and Jamie to escape from her mother. In the end, Ada and Jamie ended up staying with a woman named Susan Smith who had her own problems and didn't feel capable of taking care of children. Susan did her absolute best, and loved Ada and Jamie well. The war was still happening around them, but deep down this was the safest Ada had ever felt. However, Ada and Jamie's mother showed up at Susan's to take back her children because she found out she was going to have to pay. Ada and Jamie were thrusted back into their old life, but Ada developed the courage to make a deal with her mother that she wouldn't have to keep them or pay. Ada's mother agreed, Ada's heart was so broken, but Ada knew she wanted to go back and live with Susan. Lastly, Ada and Jamie left even under the intensifying threat of bombs from the war. Susan had come looking for them in London, and found them. When they returned back to Susan's house, her house had been bombed, Susan realized that Ada and Jamie had saved her life, and Ada knew that Susan had saved her's.
This book is absolutely phenomenal. I think the appropriate grade-level for this book would be fourth grade to twelfth grade. I would use this book in my classroom, because it opens our eyes to the fact that abuse is real and we never really know what someone has gone through. One way I would use this book in the classroom would be to focus on the vocabulary used. I think it would be really good to do character analysis for each of the characters in this book because they're all so different. Lastly, I think a focus on the different emotions in this book would be really great and powerful.