Goodnight Mister Tom

Goodnight Mister Tom

First edition
Author	Michelle Magorian
Cover artist	Angelo Renaldi
Genre	Children's historical novel
Publisher	Kestrel Books
Publication date	1981
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)
Pages	304 pp (first edition)
ISBN	0-7226-5701-3
OCLC	9987640
LC Class	PZ7.M275 Go 1981[1]

Goodnight Mister Tom is a children's novel by the English author Michelle Magorian, published by Kestrel in 1981. Harper & Row published an American edition within the calendar year.^[1] Set during World War II, it features a boy abused at home in London who is evacuated to the country at the outbreak of the war. In the care of Mister Tom, an elderly recluse, he experiences a new life of loving and care.

Magorian and Mister Tom won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime award judged by a panel of British children's writers.^[2] She was also a commended runner up for the Carnegie Medal from the British librarians, recognising the year's best English-language children's book published in the UK.^{[3][lower-alpha 1]}

The novel has been twice adapted as a musical, once as a play and once as a film, Goodnight Mister Tom (1998). In 2003, the novel was listed at number 49 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.^[4] The most recent theatrical adaptation, Goodnight Mister Tom won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment.^[5]

Summary

In September 1939, as Britain stands on the brink of the war, many young children from the cities are evacuated to the countryside to escape an imminent German bombardment. Willie Beech, a boy from Deptford who is physically and emotionally abused by his mother, arrives at the home of Tom Oakley, a widower in his sixties who lives in the village of Little Weirwold. The boy is thinly clad, underfed and covered with painful bruises, and believes he is full of sin, a result of his upbringing by his mother, a domineering, insane, God-fearing widow.

"Mister Tom", as William christens his new guardian, is reclusive and bad-tempered, and as such is avoided by the community. Willie lives with him as his Mother wants him to live with someone who is either religious or lives next to a church. Though initially distant, he is touched after discovering William's home-life and treats him with kindness and understanding, helping to educate him. Under his care, William begins to thrive, forming a small circle of friends at school among his classmates including fellow-evacuee Zach. He also becomes proficient in drawing and dramatics. As William is changed by Tom, so is Tom transformed by William's presence in his home. It is revealed that Tom lost his wife and baby son to scarletina some 40 years previously, and he has become reclusive because of this.

The growing bond between William and Tom is threatened when William's mother requests that the boy returns to her in the city, telling him she is sick. At first, William thinks this will be a good thing, as he can be helpful to his mother. However, his mother is not pleased to learn the details of his time with Tom, feeling that he has not been disciplined properly. While William has been away, she has become pregnant and had a girl, but is neglecting the baby. After a bad reunion, where his mother becomes furious upon learning the details of her son's life with Tom, abhorring his association with the Jewish Zach among other things, she hits William around the head which renders him unconscious. She then puts him in the under-stairs cupboard, chains him to the piping and leaves the baby in his arms. William regains consciousness briefly to find himself in the cupboard – he has been stripped of his clothes, minus his underwear, and his ankle is twisted. He quietly sobs for Tom, before he falls asleep.

Back in Little Weirwold, Tom has a premonition that something is not right with William. Although he has never traveled beyond his immediate locality, he ventures into London and eventually locates William's neighborhood of Deptford and his home. He persuades a local policeman to break down the door of the apparently empty home, to be greeted with a vile stench. They find William in the closet with the baby, who had also been locked under the stairs by William's mother and has now died. William is malnourished and badly bruised as he had been locked under the stairs for a number of days. William is hospitalized, but whilst there suffers horrific nightmares and is drugged simply to prevent his screams from disturbing other children. Tom is warned that it is likely that William will be taken to a children's home, and, unable to observe William's distress any longer, kidnaps him from the hospital and takes him back to Little Weirwold.

Back with Mister Tom, William is much damaged by his ordeal and is also blaming himself for the death of his sister as he had not been able to provide enough milk to feed her whilst locked away, and becomes very depressed. Later, when his favourite teacher Annie Hartridge has a baby, William is shocked to learn from Zach that a woman cannot conceive a child on her own, and realises that his mother was having a relationship with a man, even though she had previously told him that it was wrong for unmarried couples to live together or have children together (something which society in general had regarded as unacceptable at this time). Tom is traced by the authorities, who have come to tell William that his mother is dead, having committed suicide by drowning. They also offer him a place in a children's home, as they've been unable to trace any other relatives who may have been able to take care of him. Luckily the authorities realize that William has already found a good home and allow Tom to adopt him.

Tom, William and Zach then enjoy a holiday at the seaside village of Salmouth, where they stay in the house of a widow whose sons have been sent out to war. Zach then receives news that his father has been injured by a German bomb in London and he hurries home on the next train saying farewell to all his friends. Unfortunately this is the last time they see him. William later learns that Zach has been killed and is grief-stricken for some time, but his grief is later healed by a hermit artist who tells William about the loss of his own best friend. This is when William starts to come to terms with Zach's death. Adding to this, Doctor Little, the village doctor, who was Zach's guardian while he was evacuated, gives William Zach's bike. Through learning to ride it, William realizes that Zach lives on inside him and he will never forget his wonderful companion that Zach was.

At the very end, there is a scene where William rides Zach's bike and impresses Tom, that is the first time William refers to Tom as his 'dad'.

Awards

Commended, The Carnegie Medal 1981, The Guardian Fiction Award 1982, International Reading Association Award 1982, Runner-up for The Young Observer Prize 1982, Western Australian Young Readers Book Award 1982, National TV Awards 1999: Best Drama, BAFTA 1999: Lew Grade Award for Most Popula f 1998 and Television & Radio Industries Club Award 1999: Best ITV/Channel 5 Programme of 1998

Notes

References

External links

• Goodnight Mister Tom in libraries (WorldCat catalog) —immediately, first US edition
• On Goodnight Mister Tom by the author