Nana's Book Library

Brian lives in England.  He loves his country, loves his family, loves his tiny village, loves riding the neighbor’s pony, Rob Roy, loves riding his bike and seeing the ducks in the pond near the Village Green, and loves visiting his friend, Mrs. Budge, who has a little shop (“really the front room of Mrs. Budge’s cottage”).  “Besides the sweets, Mrs. Budge sold buns and packages of biscuits and vegetables.  She had aprons and pins and reels of cotton and stockings for sale, too.”  

Brian goes to tell Mrs. Budge that he is going away to America.  England is at war.  Brian’s father, a soldier, is serving in Africa.  The Germans are bombing England every day, and like many moms in England, Brian’s mother wants her son to be safely away from danger.  So, while she must remain in England to take care of her elderly mother and father, she sends Brian to stay with his aunt and uncle in New York City.  He will fly on the Yankee Clipper, a slow-moving sea plane.

Brian doesn’t complain.  He knows his duty is to be brave.  He even adopts a motto:  “Uphold England,”and determines to live by it.

When he goes to say goodbye to Mrs. Budge, she has tea ready:  “There were fat sugary buns, bread, plum jam, and a big plate of rock cakes.  There was tea for Mrs. Budge and milk for Brian.  In wartime, so many good things at once were a very special treat.”  This sums up Brian:  he looks for the good, and he finds it.  

When he gets to his aunt and uncle’s house, he sets his photos of Father and Mother on the dresser in his new bedroom, along with a snapshot of Mrs. Budge standing in her sweet shop door.  “He was glad to see the three familiar faces in a row.”  

At his new school in New York, he is asked to tell his story.  Although he is scared of public speaking, he makes himself climb to the podium.  Uphold England!  “No matter what happened, Brian didn’t mean to fail… If his teeth were shut very tight, no one knew it but he.”  And in a humble, matter-of-fact way, Brian tells just what has happened to him:

“I lived in London.  And when London was bombed, I got on a ship with other British boys and girls to go to Canada.  The ship was torpedoed, and we stood on the deck with the water over our ankles.  I was put in a lifeboat, but, halfway down, the boat stuck, and a sailor cut the rope with his knife.  The boat fell into the water, but it landed right side up.  We were three days at sea with only ship’s biscuits to eat.  But we were picked up by an English vessel and taken to Liverpool.  I was sent home, and after a while I flew to Lisbon and came here on the Yankee Clipper.”  

Brian and the people in this story are so different from many today, that this book is noteworthy for many reasons.  One, it’s just a lovely story.  Two, the people he meets in England and America are nice.   Today, we might be thinking, “Oh, no, the kids are going to be mean to him.  Bullies will steal his lunch money,” or some such plot line.  But that doesn’t happen.  There are a lot of good talking points in this book.

This book is available in paperback on Amazon.  Note:  On Amazon, I would look for it used.  It is significantly cheaper than the limited-edition version I have, which was recently reprinted by The Good and Beautiful Books.  It is also available used in paperback and hardcover on eBay and Abebooks.   However:  You might prefer to check it out digitally at the Open Library:  https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6440063M/Brian%27s_victory.

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc