HENRIETTA SEES IT THROUGH

This sequel to Henrietta’s War, by Joyce Dennys, is just as lovable as the first volume. As World War II drags on, Henrietta’s narrative of small-town life on the home front is increasingly shadowed by anxiety and melancholy, but she and her friends endure all indignities with wit and aplomb. She derives much humor from her own endearing haplessness; as, for example, when she enters her dog, Perry, in the local dog show:

We nearly won the Dog Race (Owner to Run Backwards) too, but just at the finish Perry caught sight of the spaniel and twisted his lead round my legs. Some people fall elegantly and gracefully—I am not one. When I got back to my chair, Lady B said, “Fancy those knickers lasting all this time. Didn’t get you get them before the war?”

And if Henrietta hadn’t already earned my affection, her status as a fellow book lover would have won me over:

To part with even one of the tattered and incongruous volumes which form what I am pleased to call my library is, for me, worse than losing a front tooth. Sometimes I wake in the night and writhe to think of the books I have lent to people and never seen again. Once I groaned aloud and woke Charles. “What is the matter, Henrietta?” he said. “Have you got a pain?”

“No, Charles, but I keep thinking of that copy of Barchester Towers which I lent somebody and never got back.”

“For crying out loud!” said Charles, and went to sleep again.

This leads to my favorite part of the book, in which Henrietta’s agony at having to donate books for a scrap drive to aid the war effort results in her stealing a complete set of Fielding to rescue it from being rendered into pulp (which seems perfectly reasonable to me). I highly recommend that you check it out for yourself.