Horrible histories: the blitzed Brits door Terry Deary

This book report is on one of the novels in a well-known series of books by author Terry Deary. ‘Scholastic Publications Ltd.’ have published it and Kate Sheppard has drawn the many illustrations.

· Title

The title ‘Blitzed Brits’ is short but to the point and easy to remember. As Deary does in all of his other novels of this particular series, he is using a form of poetry: alliteration in his title. This gives his books a catchy name that is also easy to remember.
Other examples of Terry Deary’s alliteration skills are ‘The Terrible Tudors’, ‘The Groovy Greeks’, ‘The Rotten Romans’ and ‘The Measly Middle ages’.

· Characters

Since this book is an informative novel, all characters are based on the reality of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. For example, the story talks about famous people before and after the 2nd World War, like Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain (Prime Minister of Britain before the war started) and Winston Churchill.
Even though the book talks about characters it is not based on them. The ‘Blitzed Brits’ focuses on dates and events and puts them in chronological order.
The book also concentrates on specific topics of these times, which are Gas Attacks, Evacuation, Rationing, Wartime Inventions, and The Royal family. The funny thing is, that these subjects have mostly also alliterated titles, which must have cost a lot of time to create.

· Genre

This book contains a non-fiction story based on events of the Second World War; you could call it a comical Historic Account of the War. Comical because of all the cartoons which make the story more interesting and humorous.

· Theme

There are two particular themes in this book. No.1 is to teach you what happened before and during the Second World War. No.2 is to amuse you.

· Summary

As mentioned above, the book talks about all the interesting things that have happened in Britain around the 2nd World War.
It starts when on the 15th March 1933 Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party take control of Germany. The British fear an invasion from the Nazis and give a gas mask to every British schoolchild.
In 1939 the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, promises Poland that ‘Great Britain and France will help if Germany invades you.’ Still Poland is invaded in the same year and the British Government, afraid of war, orders women and children to be evacuated into the countryside where they will remain safe for the time being. Also Britain declares war on the Germans, which marks the beginning of World War II.
This is also the start of the air raids. When the first one sounded, people rushed around like headless chickens but fortunately it was a false alarm.
January 1940: the coldest winter for half a century. The Thames freezes and nazi submarines sink food supplies going to England. In May Germany invades Holland and Belgium heading towards France and the English Channel. On the other side of the Channel Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister.
One million men aged between 17 and 65 join the Local Defense Volunteers, known as the Home Guard (or ‘Dad’s Army’…). This was necessary because the British Army was defeated in Dunkirk and one month later it had to give up the battle for France.
On the 10th of July 1940 the large air raids began, symbolizing the beginning of the Battle for Britain. Six days later Hitler orders the Operation Sea Lion: invasion of England, but it never happened.
In September the Nazis switch from day light raids to night raids: now the Blitz has really begun! The heaviest of all raids were the ones on London that lasted until 1944.
On December 1941 the Japanese fighter planes attack American ship, with the result that the USA joins the War on the side of Britain. After some bitter fighting German soldiers surrender in Stalingrad, Russia in 1943. To top it of, in the same year Italy declares war against Hitler.
On 14 November 1944 the home guard is abolished because it was not needed anymore.
Finally on the 6 of May 1945 Germany surrenders, which meant the end of the War in Europe.

· Setting in Place and Time

The story is mainly set in England but also looks at Europe. The time in which it has been set is from 1933 to 1945, the wartime period.

· The End

The ending is what you would expect from an informative book: It ends with the year 1945 when Germany surrenders. You could call it a closed ending as it marks the end of World War II.

· Personal Opinion

I have enjoyed reading this book a lot. It has told me interesting details and facts which I never knew before and which I probably will not learn in school.
I am a small fan of Teary Deary as I have got around five other of his Horrible Histories books. Each one of them stays funny to read.
I would recommend this novel to anyone interested or not interested in History and looking for a good read.

· The Author

Terry Deary is one of the UK's most well known writers of children's books with over 2.5 million copies of the Horrible Histories series sold in England alone.
His Horrible Histories series has been translated into fifteen different languages - from Russian to Welsh.
Terry Deary realized, at the age of 13 that he could write. It took him another 20 years to be able to write for a living. Since then, Terry has had over 110 books published, 270 even if you count all the different translations!
Terry writes from his home - a converted pub in County Durham - where he lives with his wife and daughter. It takes him anything between six hours and six weeks to write a book, depending on how long it is and how difficult it is to research the topic. He writes six days a week, so free time is pretty rare. When he does have time, he enjoys acting, cricket, messing about with computers and supporting his beloved Sunderland United football team.

· Extracts from book

‘Things they shouldn’t have said: ‘There will be no war in 1939, Hitler’s horoscope shows he’s not a war maker’ – R.H. Naylor, astrologer in the Sunday Express’

‘Before the War a song was banned because it was too nasty to Germany! It was called, Even Hitler had a Mother. Then, even though Britain was at war, songwriters were nervous about writing anti-German songs.’

‘In the countryside some dark-colored cows had white lines on them in case they wandered on to the road!’

‘One shopkeeper was a blind old woman. Children made their own coupons out of blotting paper. To the blind woman it felt like a coupon and so she handed over the sweets!’