Izzie, Book 2: Trongate Fury

Anne Hutchings, a former elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Durham Board of Education, is an educational consultant.

It is January 1942 and Izzie feels a sense of foreboding. She arrives
home from school to find that her fears seem justified: her father has
finally been accepted by the navy. As a result, Izzie and her family
must leave their home in Granite Cove and move to Dartmouth, where her
mother has found a job in a sugar refinery and where they will share a
house with a total stranger. Despite her misgivings, Izzie finds that
these changes are not all bad. At least they can take Adella, the cat,
with them, and their new home has electric lights, a bathroom with a
toilet that flushes, hot water, and a real washing machine. And Rosalie,
their landlady, is a delight! Before long Izzie has two new friends:
Roberta, who is very shy, and Patricia, an English “guest child.”
Though far from the actual battlefields, Izzie, her friends, and her
family narrowly escape injury when the Trongate, laden with explosives
and ammunition, catches fire in Halifax harbour.

Told in part in a series of letters Izzie writes to her best friend,
Jasper, back in Granite Cove, the continuing adventures of the
Publicover family will be enjoyed by students in Grades 3 to 6. Many of
the issues touched on in the story could lead to further investigation
and research: the contrast between life in a rural Maritimes village and
that in a city such as Halifax; women in the workforce, almost unheard
of until World War II; Izzie’s fears, not just for her father’s
safety, but that she will forget what he looks like; English “guest
children”; and, of course, the Trongate near-disaster itself.
Recommended.