London Calling

by Edward Bloor

“Each life, in human history, begins when a person starts to walk down a path. At first it is the path that our parents tell us to walk down. Then we come to certain crossroads where we have two choices—remain on the one path or step off onto another. Sometimes our paths cross the paths of others at crucial points. This is where things can get uncontrollable, weird, unexplainable…”

Martin Conway feels that his life has no purpose. He’s out of place at All Souls Preparatory (the private school he got into with an employee scholarship), he thinks he’ll never be as smart as his sister, and his father is an alcoholic. Martin would really prefer to spend the rest of his life hiding in his bedroom in the basement. But everything changes when Martin’s grandmother dies and leaves him the Philco 20, an antique, arts-and-crafts radio. At first the static is just a comforting sound to sooth Martin to sleep with, but the radio is proved more than it seems when Jimmy Harker, a boy from 1940, appears in Martin’s room claiming to need his help. Soon Martin is unintentionally journeying back in time to Jimmy’s world—London in the thick of World War II. Martin is intrigued to be taken back in time, but he doesn’t understand why—why he has to see the bomb-ravaged streets and the people dying every day, when he can’t help them. But maybe Martin can do something to help...and not in the past, but in the future. It’s never too late.

I wasn’t sure if this book would be that interesting; it looked a little dry and juvenile, but as they say you should never judge a book by its cover. London Calling had a good storyline and a wonderful message, and it left me feeling sad but satisfied. I think anyone could and would enjoy it.