I was drawn to Hazel Gaynor’s When We Were Young & Brave because of the novel’s focus on a facet of World War II I’ve read so little about: what happened to the expatriate school children who were suddenly trapped in countries like China after Japan declared war against the US and Britain. Gaynor’s novel explores what happens to the mostly British students at the China Inland Mission School after that school for the children of missionaries and diplomats falls under the control of China’s Japanese invaders.
Gaynor begins with a 1975 prologue written by Nancy, a forty-something-year-old woman who is looking back on her experiences as a ten-year-old student in the Chefoo School more than thirty years earlier. The rest of the story is told in alternating flashback chapters written from the points of view of Nancy, the child, and Elspeth, one of the school’s young teachers.
“…our war wasn’t one of battles and bombs. Ours was a war of everyday struggles; of hope versus despair, of courage against fear, strength over frailty. For all the time we spent under the control of the Japanese regime, without any certainty of when — if — it would end, not one of us could be sure which side would win. So we simply went on, rising and falling with each sunrise and sunset; forever lost, until we were found.” (page 242)
The story begins in December 1941 when Nancy is only ten years old. She and her best friends, Sprout and Mouse, by this time have already been separated from their parents (missionaries working hundreds of miles away in inland China) for the better part of a year. All told, 124 children have remained at school for the Christmas holidays, along with a handful of teachers and missionaries, because the Sino-Japanese war has made it so dangerous to travel across the country to their parents. According to the headmaster, the boys and girls are composed of “ninety British, three Canadians, five Australians, two South Africans, eighteen Americans, three Norwegians, and three Dutch.” Most of the students began their internment as children; by the time they are rescued in August, 1945, they would be young adults.
Over the four years of their confinement by the Japanese army, the children and their teachers experience a steady decline in housing conditions, medical treatment, and food quantity and quality. No matter how bad things get, however, the dedicated teachers and staff, who continue to school them on a daily basis, manage to shelter the children from truly understanding the fragility of their existence. For almost five years, the courageous teachers substitute for the parents that are missing in the lives of these children who, by the end of 1945, can barely even remember life at home with their families.
Bottom Line: When We Were Young & Brave is a touching and inspirational story about a small group of students and teachers suddenly placed into a life-or-death situation for which they are totally unprepared. Their reality changes from one day to the next, but they find a way to cope with whatever is thrust upon them. However, despite the atrocities they suffer over the years, Gaynor tells their story in a way that seldom leaves the reader with a real sense of the terror and brutality of life in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. When We Were Young & Brave has more the feel of a good YA novel than one written for adults looking for an understanding of what the experience was really like for those who experienced it.
Hazel Gaynor
Brutal times, you definitely did not want to be a prisoner of the Japanese military at that time. This novel sounds worth reading.
ReplyDeleteIt is not quite as realistic as I had hoped it would be, Terra, but it is very definitely a novel that deserves to be read. The brutality, with an exception or two, is more hinted at and talked about than being on display.
DeleteI hadn't heard of this one but that cover, coupled with your review makes this one seem like an important and worthy read. It seems as if it would make for a good group discussion as well.
ReplyDeleteIt would absolutely make a great book club book, Diane. It is a good reminder of how lives can suddenly change for the worse, and that children are just as much, if not more, the victims of war as are the adults around them.
DeleteHm, that's an issue I had never thought about, but apparently it made for an interesting read. The World War II period is a time that I tend to avoid in my reading. (I think I OD'd on it growing up with stories from my father.) I do occasionally make exceptions.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely interesting, Dorothy, even though I wish it had been blunter than it is. As it is, I still felt the emotions and the connections between the kids and their teachers even though I felt a bit sheltered as a reader. I'm sure that it was written with a target audience in mind, and that it worked very well for that audience.
DeleteI come from a farm town (pop. 1800)in which one man was literally blown off the USS Arizona and another survived the Bataan Death March. This is a part of WWII history I know nothing about, and your review makes me want to learn more.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of situation was more common than we normally think, I suspect, because there were the children of missionaries and diplomats all over the world when the war suddenly exploded upon them. It's akin to what happened to civilian hospital staffs, and the like, when expatriate doctors and nurses got captured and imprisoned.
DeleteI like reading books about this side of World War II. The majority of WWII books seem to be set in Europe. The setting and story of this book reminds me a little of Guests of the Emperor by Janice Young Brooks which is also a good read.
ReplyDeleteFunny that you mention that, Lark, and I wonder if it shows some kind of bias on the part of historians who more easily identify with Europeans than with Asian populations. But since the whole mess started with Hitler in Europe, I suppose that theater's dominance is kind of logical.
DeleteIt is an interesting viewpoint ... being in a school over there. 4 years is a long time. Was the novel meant as YA or was it for adults? I'm glad the majority survived right?
ReplyDeleteIt was aimed at an adult audience rather than a YA one, but it's kind of like the difference between the old PG13 movies and an R-rated movie in that it hinted at the depth of the brutality more than it let the readers see it for themselves. In the story, the vast majority did survive...in reality, I don't know how it worked out for the prisoners.
DeleteI had a teacher in grad school that was in one of these situations, she was very young at the and mentioned it during class one day, but never gave any details. I'd be interested in this book for that reason alone.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine experiencing something like that as a child - or for that matter, what it would have been like for a parent to lose a child for several years that way. The part of the story that made me think most was the difficulties involved when the children were returned to parents they barely remembered. Some of them were away from parents for up to five years...one-third to one-half the lives of some of the younger ones at that point.
DeleteI just picked this one up from the library the other day. I'm intrigued by the premise as you were. Interesting that the author doesn't really dig in to the realities of the situation she's writing about. I like a clean novel, but I also want a realistic one, you know?
ReplyDeleteShe, on a couple of occasions, gets fairly blunt, but only very briefly. Other than that it's all hinted at or passed over. Half the book is told through the eyes of a child; the other half through the eyes of one of their teachers. But even the child's narration is filtered through the eyes of the adult woman that child became.
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