This is a great read. It is a vivid and engaging depiction of a child and his mother torn from home after home, a child whose parents live a cold war with each other and how their lives all change when John, his sister Elizabeth and his mother move in 1940 from England back to Victoria, BC, to live in Admirals House. Young John gives us a child's innocent view of both historical and intimate details of the life of a war-child. He struggles to make sense of the vast struggles between good and evil and the changes brought to his life, to his friends at school and to his sense of how it is happening all around him. These changes are reflected in the things he worries about, the kinds of war games he and his friends create, and the growing tensions between his parents.