Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer - OPTIONAL

Shaffer, Mary Ann and Annie Barrows The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 277 p. Dial (Penguin), 2008.

HS - OPTIONAL

Juliet Ashton's war-time writings were well received, but she doesn't want to write about the war anymore. When she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a farmer from the Channel Islands who owns a book she previously owned and credits the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for encouraging his reading, her curiosity is piqued and she begins to correspond with him as well as several other members of this society. She becomes more and more intrigued and eventually leaves her suitor and life in London to visit her new pen-pals on the island.

Presenting the story through letters highlights both the power and the weakness of this almost obsolete communication form to reveal a person's character and circumstances. At first, meeting the characters and learning about their stories through letters keeps you at a distance. You feel like you are eavesdropping instead of an honorary character of the story. Nevertheless, by the end, the different members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society are interesting enough, and their slice of history during World War II is fascinating. I don't know how patient high-school students will be with the format, but this is a popular read right now, especially among book clubs, and World War II fans will be introduced to an obscure chapter of history.

Reviewed by P.K.Foster, MS teacher-librarian.