Review: Children of WWII paid prices as well.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 4, 2014
The Only Blue Door is a side of Historical Fiction that I usually don't delve into. Ms. Fallon does not talk about the events of WWII in regards to battle, or the soldiers that typically I would read when looking into the era. She takes on the challenge of what the plight of children were in the war town world of the era.This is a subject matter that is handled with deftness. And when telling a tale from the views of children, we of adults must take extra care to work towards truth while telling such. Childhood is many years and miles from us, and to remember that period of our lives, as well as to cast the protagonists in a time of great personal tragedies, takes all the skill of master.Ms. Fallon gives us a premise that requires some suspension of disbelief, though with the pandemonium of the Blitz as a backdrop, and a bureaucracy little ready to deal with the massive amounts of tragedy that was swamping them, one can take on faith that such plot devices as Ms. Fallon employs could easily have existed. The Catholic Church takes in on the chin in The Only Blue Door, so if you have strong religious feelings, be prepared for some harsh realities of how children perceive the strictness that the church may have embraced. It is not the Church of Padre Rufino Niccacci of Assisi.But our journey, like the branches of a vine that twist and turn and rewind back onto itself, comes to fruition. It gives us glimpses into different parts of the war that have little bearing on the battles, except perhaps there outcomes and as minor subplots. We see the parts of the world that equate to A Town Called Alice of Australia during the war, and after when scarcity, little discussed in near all tales of the period, is certainly a theme that has to be given credence to bear on the tale that has evolved in this page turner.Pacing is like the hundred yard dash, not in it's brevity, but that as the war begins, the tale is slow to show us what will happen, for the tale is not of the war, but of the children who will grow as the war continues and ends. Here as in a race, those first steps from a standing start are slow, but as we near the end, the runner gives his all and increases his effort going his fastest. And in such a tale, reaching the climax, a lot must happen at once to bring in those pieces of the vine back to a semblance of beauty.For those who would like to view more to their history than one battle or another, one tale of heroism involving the soldiers, sailors and airmen, and even adults of World War II, then this tale of three heroic children might be something to sit down with and begin. A chance to see more of the world than you might ever have imagined existed when such monumental events were taking place, yet for the heroes of this tale, these were the most monumental moments of their lives.