Willow Run by Patricia Reilly Giff

“Every single apartment was the same. Gray. Not a curtain on a window….A kindergarten kid could have drawn it: a long low box that stretched from one end of the paper to the other, no paint, no color. And if you divided the box into tiny sections, each family would have one to live in. Worst of all, there was no grass, nothing growing, only tree stumps near the curb, their tops pale and raw. I remembered what Grandpa had said once, shaking his head in anger. ‘To kill a tree!’I could see that Mom was as disappointed as I was. I handed the cats to her, one by one, then backed out of the car.” (33)

This is Margaret “Meggie” Dillion’s first impression of her home in Willow Run, Michigan, where her family has moved to from Rockaway, New York. Her dad just got a new job at the airplane factory there, helping the war effort building planes to fight in World War II. Her mom soon gets a job in the factory too. Their new home is so small, they had to leave behind Meggie’s German Grandfather, who Meggie worries about as she spends her lazy summer afternoons meeting the other kids who live at the plant. She also worries about her brother Eddie, fighting overseas. When a telegram arrives telling the family that Eddie is missing in action, eleven year old Meggie needs to find the strength and courage that she never believed was there. Travel back in time to World War II, and read Willow Run, by Patricia Reilly Giff.

AMY