A Long Way from Verona

Jessica Vye is a 13-year-old girl living in the North of England during World War II. Yet she maintains that the “violent” experience that shaped her was being told, at the age of 9, by visiting author Arnold Hanger that she is “a writer beyond all possible doubt!” At 13, Jessica has internalized the sentiment that she is a born writer and also believes herself to be a mind-reader and a compulsive truth-teller. She’s smart, funny, odd, and widely misunderstood by her fellow students and teachers, who worry that she’s getting above herself. In this short, sweet coming-of-age novel, the eccentric young Jessica Vye paints a vivid picture of her school days, family life, and social sphere amidst the bleak realities of wartime: food rations, gas masks, and the threat of air raids. At the end of my reading, I’m inclined to agree with Arnold Hanger. What a wonderful writer!.