7/6/2023 0 Comments The railway children book![]() ![]() But the storyline about Abe does not work nearly as well as the scenes of the children getting used to their new environment, responding to bullies, exploring, and coming to terms with a war that they cannot fully understand but accept because it's all they've ever known. There is nothing wrong with updating a classic story. Casting directors: put her in a movie with Thomasin McKenzie playing sisters who solve crimes or commit (not too serious) crimes. The young actors give sensitive, moving performances, especially Gadsdon. Kit Fraser’s cinematography has touches of nostalgic sepia in its color palette to evoke the past. ![]() The setting, with many of the same locations from the first film, is used effectively the peaceful, bucolic beauty of the countryside contrasts with the war news and underscoring the children’s adaptability and resolve. Lily agrees to bring him some bandages and he earns her trust by saving her when a bomb lands near them. In the grand tradition of “Great Expectations,” “Whistle Down the Wind,” “ The Parts You Lose,” and others, he needs their help. That is where they discover Abe, who tells them he is an American GI on a secret mission. And they enjoy exploring the railyard, where Thomas has set up a secret headquarters for spying that he insists is helping the war effort. But they enjoy exploring the country with its fresh air and unobstructed starry nights. Her kindness makes the newcomers feel at home and they quickly bond with Ann’s son, Thomas ( Austin Haynes). Bobbie Waterbury (Agutter) persuades her daughter Ann ( Sheridan Smith), the school headmistress, to take them. No one wants the three siblings who won’t be separated. When they arrive in Yorkshire, local families are told to pick the whichever children they are willing to take home. Lily ( Beau Gadsdon), a brave and resilient teenager, promises her mother she will take care of her dress-hating sister Pattie ( Eden Hamilton) and their teddy-bear toting young brother Ted ( Zac Cudby). One mother sobs and snatches her child back from the train because she just cannot bear for them to be separated. The children are confused and scared, and parents are trying to comfort them. The Nazis are bombing English cities and parents are sending their children to the Yorkshire countryside to keep them safe. The story opens at a Manchester train station. His arc is so clumsily constructed and resolved, at the same time both under- and over-written, that even the very appealing Kenneth Aikens cannot make it work. The storyline is very different, and a new character has been added, a Black American GI named Abe. ![]() Mother announces that Father will be away for a while and that the family must move to the countryside, admitting to the children that the family needs “to play at being poor for a bit” (24), although she doesn’t tell them why.The setting has been moved from Victorian times to 1944, near the end of World War II. Peter’s toy engine-his favorite birthday present-is left broken, as Father has not had time to fix it before his disappearance. This idyllic existence ends abruptly days after Peter’s birthday when two men show up at the house and have a heated conversation with Father, who disappears shortly afterward. They live in a large house with servants, and “always had everything they needed: pretty clothes, good fires, a lovely nursery with heaps of toys, and a Mother Goose wallpaper” (6). Their father works for the government their mother is an artistic woman who loves to tell stories and writes poems to amuse her children. When the novel opens, the three “railway children” of the novel’s title-Roberta (Bobbie), Peter, and Phyllis-are living privileged, upper-class lives with their parents in London. ![]()
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