To encourage younger readers to feel part of the project, we have chosen two books that address the theme of evacuees and children’s experience of war. These are Nina Bawden’s Carrie’s War and Helen Dunmore’s Tara’s Tree House.

Follow the links in the side bar to find out more about Nina Bawden and about Karin Littlewood, the illustrator for Tara’s Tree House.

We have produced activity packs for these books. Download the packs as a PDF and Word version at the bottom of the page.

To read about Helen Dunmore’s books for children, go to the Children’s Fiction page.

For background information on evacuees in Bristol go to the Evacuees page.

We would like to encourage schools and colleges participating in the project to send us their drawings, poems, stories and other work inspired by their reading of the books, and reports on classroom activities that are taking place. We will publish a selection on the website and also forward some to the Bristol Evening Post, who are partners in this project. Follow the links below to submit your contributions.

To read about activities that have already taken place in schools and other sites in the city as part of the Great Reading Adventure and to submit your own reports, go to the News page.

To make a comment on the book you have read or to read
reminiscences of people who experienced the war in Bristol, go to the Reader Contributions page.

For details of the special events taking place as part of the Great Reading Adventure go to the Events and Competitions page.

For details of books and weblinks related to the topics raised in the Great Reading Adventure go to the Bibliography and Resources page.