For Middle-School Readers: A Place to Hang the Moon

Liz Lantigua interviews Kate Albus, author of a compelling and uplifting historical novel for middle-schoolers.

A Place to Hang the Moon

by Kate Albus
Margaret Ferguson Books

A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus is a historical novel for teens that takes place in London, England, during World War II. The whimsical cover of three children in front of a cozy library with vines covering the building attracts middle-schoolers like a magnet and its story will keep them turning the pages until the end.

Orphaned siblings William, Edmund, and Anna Pearce are evacuated from the city to the countryside to avoid the dangers of war. They have a secret. The goal, after their grandmother died, was not only to be safe from the war but find a true home with a foster family. Kate Albus' writing style is so engaging. The story reads like a classic. While the children’s struggles are described, there are also moments of humor. Highlighted is the importance of family, with an uplifting ending.

A Place to Hang the Moon

The story behind the story

“England’s World War II evacuations have fascinated me for years,” Kate said. “The very idea of more than a million children being shipped off to live with strangers, in strange places, and in some cases for years! As a child, I couldn’t have imagined being sent away from my family, and as a mom, I couldn’t fathom sending my own kids away.”

In doing research for the book, Kate said she spent about 6 months just reading non-fiction about life on the English home front during the war. In particular, she read many memoirs of actual evacuees. She also benefited from the British government's wartime Mass Observation project, in which everyday citizens were encouraged to keep diaries to document their experiences. Kate started with this premise and let her characters lead.

“What started as a story about England's WWII evacuations evolved into a story about the healing and comforting power of books, but the evolution only happened by letting William, Edmund, and Anna find their own way forward on the page,” Kate said.

What surprised her the most in her research was the capacity of the people at the time to find joy and to look for the good in one another and in their work.

A story drawn from family lore

The author drew from her own family lore. Nora’s "snug" is based on a real-life snug in the home of her late Auntie Florence who lived outside of Belfast, Northern Ireland. A snug is a comfortable, warm and cozy room in the house where family gathers. Nora, and we won’t say much to avoid spoilers, is the caring librarian in this story who picks out just the right books for the three main characters as they spend time in the library seeking solace from the world around them.

“The stories I love most are stories of found family, and I hope A Place to Hang the Moon offers such a tale. William, Edmund, and Anna’s dream is to find a family … they also find it in the books they so love, and in coming to see, know, love, and respect one another in new and different ways,” Kate said.

The book can be purchased at GoodNewsBookFair.com.

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