Author: Michelle Magorian
Publisher: Egmont
Publication Year: 2008
Most of the readers will be: Late middle school to early high school boys and girls.
Reader's Advisory: This year's unusual Caldecott winner, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, is also a historical fiction novel that talks about old movies.
Summary:
Henry's neighborhood and family were torn apart by World War II. His father died a hero and Henry walks by piles of rubble on his way to the cinema every week. His mother has remarried and had a daughter, Molly. And his father's mother has moved in with them. Henry knows a few things at the beginning of the novel: His stepfather (Uncle Bill) is stuck up for wanting to go back to school and be something other than a railway man. The Jeffries family is no good because Mr. Jeffries is a deserter. He hasn't been seen since the war and Henry's father died saving Mr. Jeffries's life. Being divorced or having a child out of wedlock is scandalous, and Herny should not associate with people like that.
But there is a new teacher at Henry's school this year, and he sees people a little differently. He has the class work on group projects all year and he puts Henry in a group with the young Jeffries, and Pip, who was born on the "wrong side of the sheets." After weeks of desperately trying to avoid his groupmates, Henry finally gives in to his teacher's wishes and discovers he likes Jeffries and Pip! What else in his life had Henry been wrong about?
My favorite passage:
'You look browned off,' said his mother. 'The films weren't that bad, were they?'
Henry had just returned from the cinema. One of the films he had seen had left him feeling a bit low.
'There was this James Mason film called Caught and it was supposed to have a happy ending. And it sort of did.' And he paused. 'And it didn't.'
'What do you mean?'
'It was about a woman who was married to a man who didn't love her, only she didn't find out till after she'd married him. And he treaterd her like he owned her. Then she found out that she was goin' to have a baby, so she was sort of trapped, 'cos he said that if she divorced him, he'd pay people to say terrible things about her so he could take the baby away from her and then she'd never see it again. And he was really nasty to her. He wouldn't let her sleep when she wanted. And he made her cook meals for him and his friends in the middle of the night. He was a bully.'
She sat down quickly and flung a hand across her face.
'What a horrible story,' she said shakily. 'Why do thy want to make films like that?' and she burst into tears.
'Mum!' He was shocked. 'It was all right, Mum. She lost the baby and ended up with this nice doctor.'
'So if she hadn't lost the baby, she would have had to stay with the nasty one?'
'Yeah. He was a very powerful man. That's what I meant about the ending. It was good because she ended up with the nice doctor, but it was bad because she lost the baby.' (pg 106-107)
What I really think:
It is worth mentioning that this book is over 700 pages long and is divided into four parts. When I reached the end of part one I thought to myself, "This could be a book all on it's own." But after reading the whole thing I do think all the parts work together to make one unified story.
My only complaint is that it is a little too perfect that Henry is forced to walk in the shoes of the people he used to look down on towards the end of the book, especially since he has already learned his lesson by then.
Other than that, I really enjoyed Just Henry. I learned about cinema from 1900 to 1950, about post World War II Briton, and some things about British culture in general.
