London Calling [Library Binding]

Edward Bloor (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

Martin Conway comes from a family filled with heroes and disgraces. His grandfather was a statesman who worked at the US Embassy in London during WWII. His father is an alcoholic who left his family. His sister is an overachieving Ivy League graduate. And Martin? Martin is stuck in between--floundering.

But during the summer after 7th grade, Martin meets a boy who will change his life forever. Jimmy Harker appears one night with a deceptively simple question: Will you help?

Where did this boy come from, with his strange accent and urgent request? Is he a dream? It's the most vivid dream Martin's ever had. And he meets Jimmy again and again--but how can his dreams be set in London during the Blitz? How can he see his own grandather, standing outside the Embassy? How can he wake up with a head full of people and facts and events that he certainly didn't know when he went to sleep--but which turn out to be verifiably real?

The people and the scenes Martin witnesses have a profound effect on him. They become almost more real to him than his waking companions. And he begins to believe that maybe he can help Jimmy. Or maybe that he must help Jimmy, precisely because all logic and reason argue against it.

This is a truly remarkable and deeply affecting novel about fathers and sons, heroes and scapegoats. About finding a way to live with faith and honor and integrity. And about having an answer to the question: What did you do to help?


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-9–Using the literary technique of magical realism, Bloor brings readers a serious tale of justice and redemption, of fathers and sons, of the privileged and the common. John Martin Conway feels out of place at his exclusive prep school, where he is constantly reminded that he is a scholarship kid. After a confrontation with Hank Lowery, the great-grandson of the schools founder, he requests to work at home on an independent study project. The World War II-era radio that his grandmother left him brings him into contact with Jimmy, a boy who lived during the war and who needs his help. He takes Martin back to the time of the London Blitz. In his own time, he focuses his research on the things Jimmy shows him and the people he encounters. Along the way he uncovers some new information about his grandfathers and General Hank Lowerys dealings during the war and discovers how he can help put Jimmys soul to rest. He also comes to terms with his alcoholic father and with his own depression. Readers will identify with the modern elements of the story and be drawn into the tension of the historical events. Evocative descriptions and elegant phrasings make the writing most enjoyable, and because the author uses a first-person voice, the story seems very personal, and readers will feel Martins turmoil and angst. Bloors fans and those who like a little light fantasy with their history will find something intriguing here.–Cheri Dobbs, Detroit Country Day Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 6-9. When an old radio transports Martin back in time to London during the Blitz, the seventh-grader makes startling discoveries that fuel twin quests: one to expose the unflattering truth behind two World War II heroes casting long shadows in his life, and the other to answer a young Londoner's eerie pleas for help. Every bit as provocative and open-ended as Bloor's Crusader (1999), this genre-defying novel incorporates mysticism steeped in Martin's Catholic faith and a present-day trip to London that connects two troubled father-son relationships across the decades. Bloor demands much of his readers, especially concerning the diplomatic issues leading to U.S. involvement in World War II, and many will have questions about where the facts end and invention begins. Ambitious yet unwieldy, this may work best as a fictional supplement in history classrooms, where it will open discussions of both the slippery qualities of historical truth ("Who decides what the real history of a time is?") and the nature of genuine heroism. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Library Binding: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375936351
• ISBN-13: 978-0375936357
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,059,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I have always been a writer, for as far back as I can remember. In the mid-1990s, I sold a novel that was marketed in the young adult genre. Since then, things have gone very, very well. I am married to a beautiful teacher named Pam. We have two children--Amanda and Spencer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost 5 Stars, August 15, 2007

By 

Melba G. (Redwood City, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: London Calling (Hardcover)

I picked this up because I loved Tangerine, by the same author. I decided my boys are all going to read Tangerine when they get a bit older because it is a great story and I loved how the main character takes on the bully in his life.

This book will also be on my list of reads for them, but for a different reason. It's also a great story and once again there is an obnoxious bully who needs someone to stand up to him. But there is also a message. I know, kids don't like message books, but it's really just a small part of the story and it's a good message. I think I read a similar sentiment in a Margaret Frazer book, where she wrote something like, "it will be asked how you spent the time you have been given." Here, it's "what did you do to help?" Either way it applies to the hero here. At the beginning he is spending his summer sleeping - he doesn't do anything. No interests, hobbies, nothing. He is very unenthused about life.

And then Martin's grandmother leaves him an old radio that transports him to 1940s London. The story gets sort of Sixth Sense-y, but it is a very satisfying story.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Part time travel, part ghost story, part problem novel, January 5, 2007

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: London Calling (Hardcover)

Martin Conway can't stand the snobbery at All Souls Preparatory School, not to mention the uniforms and the tradition. He'd love to just get away from it all and disappear into the anonymity of public school. But he can't, because his mother works as a secretary at the school so that Martin can have the chance one day to join the diplomatic corps to which his grandfather belonged.

Martin doesn't want a better life in the future; he just wants a better one right now, away from the nasty but popular Hank Lowery and his friends --- tormentors of the weak and helpless. They attack Martin and his friends after the latter question the war hero status of Hank's grandfather. Although Hank and company strike the first blow, somehow it's Martin's friend who gets expelled (for fighting back in defense). But that's the way it works at All Souls: money and power win every time.

In addition to the dismal atmosphere at school, Martin has plenty going on at home: his mother won't listen to him, his father, an admitted alcoholic, doesn't even live with them anymore, and his beloved grandmother has just died. Worst of all, perhaps, are the dreams he's been having: dreams that place him back in World War II and that leave him with intimate knowledge of things that happened 60 years ago --- things he couldn't possibly be aware of unless he was actually there. During these bizarre happenings, he meets a young boy named Jimmy Harker who asks him a seemingly simple question: Will you help?

Edward Bloor is an author who can always be counted on for writing something different --- and LONDON CALLING is certainly that. Part time travel, part ghost story, part problem novel, LONDON CALLING does a great job of linking these different elements into one coherent and compelling whole. As with his previous books, Bloor's strength is with his characters: Martin, of course, who comes across as determined and curious even in the face of extraordinary experiences, but also his intriguing sister Margaret and straightforward best friend Pinak. Martin's unfolding relationship with his father also drives the book, as he learns to see his father as a much more complex person than he originally thought.

Readers who enjoy historical fiction with a twist will be intrigued by LONDON CALLING --- as will anyone who likes books that challenge the status quo, especially through unexpected and unusual elements. This is an effective and compelling novel that will make readers think not only about the way we view our past but also about the way we understand our present.

--- Reviewed by Paula Jolin

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive and Wrenching, October 16, 2006

By 

Jerry Wright "Mr. Bewildered" (Moses Lake, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: London Calling (Hardcover)

"London Calling" is one of the most emotionally wrenching YA books I've had the pleasure to read in the past year. The character of Martin (JMartinC is his IM username) is as real as any kid I've run into recently. Yes, there is time-travel of a sort. Martin is somehow transported to the past through the agency of an ancient Philco Radio, and Jimmy, his raggedy companion in World War II London, is a masterful, albeit tragic, character.

Martin, of course, would rather this whole thing be a dream, because the alternative seems to be insanity. But when his "dreams" start giving him historically accurate answers about things he's never heard of, then all bets are off.

"What did YOU do to help?" -- The question that reverberates through this marvelous is answered for Jimmy and Martin. Could it be answered for the reader?

Sorry for what seems like an excess of superlatives, but this is a superlative book.