Deeply resounding characters and a powerfully thought-provoking time in history combine in Hazel Gaynor’s story of a Chinese missionary school overtaken by the Japanese army during WWII. A sprawling story of endurance and resilience of the human spirit when confronted by a slow progression of suppression, the novel alternates between two central characters, a teacher at the school and her young student, giving the reader the dual perceptions of internment from the adult and child perspectives. Both characters navigate the new world they are cast into while clutching onto the principles and ideals of their beloved Girls Guide (UK’s equivalent of the US’s Girl Scouts). WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND BRAVE brought to life an aspect of WWII history that I was not familiar with before reading the book. Gaynor’s writing brought this unknown period of history to life for me through her enduring characters as they braved their new roles as enemies of the state. I’m leaving this book much richer in my understanding of this tragic time in WWII history. Based on true events in history, I’m giving this book a much deserved five stars. If you love historical fiction driven by compelling female characters, this book is a must for you!

What a heartbreaking story! I received this free book & I am thrilled. The storyline is so interesting. I love stories about countries I have visited & history & this book did not disappoint! The way the characters were described, you felt you knew them & experiencing everything they were. A definite must read book!!

What a great book! I was given an ARC to read, and could hardly put it down. Thank you to NetGalley and goodreads.

When We Were Young and Brave follows the story of a teacher and a student in a Chinese boarding school for the children of missionaries and diplomats. Their school is taken over by Japanese soldiers during WWII. Their lives turned upside down, the novel describes the ways they work to overcome many obstacles during the occupation. I found the story lyrical and mesmerizing. This story had me very tearful near the end, but it really shows a profound triumph of the human spirit. I loved it.

This author is already on my must buy list. She is wonderful as was the novel. The characters are well written and engaging. It is smart and well written and well researched as you would expect. This is a must read for all lovers of historical fiction.

I enjoyed this book which I read as an Advance Reader Copy that I got through Book Club Girl. I enjoyed the Girl Guide aspects of the book both the introduction of The Guide throughout the book and the positive and uplifting sentiments that the teachers and students seemed to foster in part from the Guide. The meetings were always held to keep a sense of routine for the girls. While I found the book to be a very fast read and I enjoyed the characters, I think there was to a large extent surface development of a number of the characters. Maybe that was by design with the chapters going back and forth between Nancy and Elspeth.

I did highlight several repetitions of themes of faith, freedom being in the mind, and fortune favoring the brave. I liked this theme which is so often found in survivor stories,

I'd recommend The Girl Who Came Home before I'd recommend this book.

The review is based upon an advance reader copy of the book. I was provided this book in exchange for an unbiased, honest review.

Their motto was to be prepared, but nothing could prepare them for war. . .

Once again, Hazel Gaynor has created a moving story. So many WWII historical fiction novels have focused on events in Great Britain and Europe. However, When We Were Young & Brave reminds us that war was also waged in other parts of our world. Based on true events, the story focuses on an international school located in Chefoo China. The students are children of diplomats and missionaries and include children from the United States, Great Britain and Australia.

December 7, 1941. One of the Chefoo school teachers, Elspeth Kent is preparing to turn in her letter of resignation so that she can return to England and join in the war effort. Her mind weighs heavily on the news that her beloved brother Alfie has been reported missing in action. Nancy Plummer, one of Elsepeth’s students has just heard the news that she and her brother Edward would not be reunited with their missionary parents for Christmas. While Nancy loves Chefoo school and her friends, Mouse and Sprout, she misses the mother that she hasn’t seen in two years. But when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and declares war on Great Britain and the United States, Elspeth Kent’s and Nancy Plummer’s lives, as well as the lives of everyone at their school, is catapulted into a direction none of them could have imagined.

Chefoo school immediately comes under the control of the Japanese military. Faced with the relentless challenges of oppression, the school community must rely on their courage, faith and friendships as they pray for liberation – but worse is to come when they are sent to a distant internment camp where even greater uncertainty and danger await.

The story unfolds under the author’s masterful use of alternating viewpoints. The reader gets to experience life for the Chefoo school students and teachers under military control as seen through Elspeth’s and Nancy’s eyes. I believe that this makes the story more realistic and gives a perspective that would not be gained if it had only been told through one character.

As one expects from a Hazel Gaynor novel, characters are well developed. Even the secondary characters of the story come to life and are as unforgettable as the story itself. The detail is rich and is evidence of the author’s depth of research in writing this story. Lovers of WWII historical fiction will definitely want to make this their next read.

Gaynor’s tale of a missionary school in WWII China under the control of the Japanese army is a compelling read. The characters are a bit flat and predictable, but Gaynor ably captures the evolving loss of freedom, safety, and belief in the goodness of fellow humans. Readers will live the lives of the students and teachers far from home and family, learning to survive.

This is a story about WWII but it is based in China and takes place at an international school. The students are from Australia, Great Britian, and the United States. It is told from alternating perspectives of students and teachers. The school comes under control of the Japanese military and teachers and students are sent to an internment camp where life becomes extremely difficult. The story is well told and has many details but very sad.. It is not a light read but an interesting perspective on war from a different part of the world and diverse characters.

When Japan entrees World War II, students and teachers from a school for foreign children in China discover just how cruel war can be. At the same time, they discover that any situation can become “normal” and that family can become those who share in our experiences. Told from two points of view, When We Were Young and Brave shows us the horrors of being prisoners of war, but also the joys that can be found in day to day survival.

Get the tissues for this one... lots of sadness and beauty rolled into one.
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Based on a true story (which I had no idea about), this book is about The China Inland Mission School during WWII - its occupation by Japanese forces, and what happens to the teachers and students over the course of several years of living in a Japanese camp.
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Told through the eyes of a student and also a teacher, we learn what this time in history was like - and how the brave staff at the Chefoo School instilled character and good in the worst of circumstances.
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Can’t wait for this book to be published so I can tell everyone to go read it - it will stay with me for a long time.
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Five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When We Were Young and Brave is historical fiction focusing on the interment of American and English schoolchildren and their teachers in China by the Japanese during WWII.
The story is told from the POV of Nancy, an English schoolgirl and Elspeth, her teacher.
The author gives emotional depth to her characters, demonstrating their courage and resilience through the horrendous situation of deprivation and war. It is a story of bravery, love and determination.
I looked forward to reading another Hazel Gaynor novel and I wasn’t disappointed. An engrossing, thought provoking read.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Book Club Girls for the early reads opportunity.

Another wonderful historical fiction by Hazel Gaynor. I always know when I read one of Ms Gaynor’s books that I am not going to be able to put it down. This new title is a beautifully written book with characters you come to love and care about.
The book is set during the Japanese occupation Of China in WWII. The chapters alternate between Elspeth Kent who is a young teacher, girl guide leader, stand in mother and all time carer of the girls at the China Inland Mission School in Chefoo China, and that of a young student, Nancy Plummer.
The story told through Elspeth and Nancy tells of the determination, the hopes, the dreams and the horrific hardships of living in an internment camp in China for the years of WWII detention.
The book takes the story through the horrors of war to liberation and to the lives of the main characters many years later.
At times heartbreaking but hope, courage and the bonds of friendship and love shine through.

When We Were Young & Brave
A Novel
by Hazel Gaynor
HarperCollins Publishers
You Like Them You Are Auto-Approved
William Morrow Paperbacks
Historical Fiction | Women's Fiction
Pub Date 06 Oct 2020 | Archive Date 01 Dec 2020

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the ARC of this book! I love Historical Fiction and this is one you won't want to miss.

5 star

I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley. When We Were Young & Brave starts off days before Pearl Harbor is bombed and the Japanese declares war on the United States and the UK. It centers around a school in China for the children of foreign missionaries and dignitaries, specifically 10 year old Nancy and a teacher Elspeth. The characters were well written and likable. The story moved quickly and was inspirational focusing on the strength and bravery of it’s characters. WWII stories are easy to find, however what drew me to this story was it’s setting.

Hazel Gaynor is one of my favorite historical fiction writers so when I was given an opportunity by NetGalley to read an ARC copy of her latest book, “When We Were Young”, I was overjoyed! In this book, her luminous, lyrical writing details the conditions suffered by children of British, American and other expatriates who were missionaries in Japanese occupied China after Japan declared war on the Allies during World War II.

Through all the privations and cruelties the children and their teachers endured as they were moved from one prison location to another, finally ending up in a detention camp, the narrative is also laced with the kindnesses and hopes shared as the group found a way to survive their ordeal. Hazel Gaynor did an outstanding job of capturing all the nuances of alternating hope and despair, and the joys found in small triumphs of nature and love. Although the topic is sad, like the teachers and their charges, the reader finds hope and joy in each page.

In "When We Were Young and Brave," Nancy is a Girl Guide, and her teacher/Guide leader/stand-in mother is Elspeth. They are in a Christian missionary school in China for American and British children (both girls and boys, being instructed separately), when World War II breaks out and they all become trapped under Japanese occupation.

The novel mostly switches back and forth between the perspectives of Nancy and Elspeth. When the Japanese take over their beloved school, the teachers and students are first relocated to a very dilapidated set of abandoned buildings. Just when they have made life nearly bearable, they are forced to walk to an internment camp by Japanese soldiers, some of whom seem nice, considering they are imprisoning and starving hundreds of people. The officers in charge are evil, and one of them is stalking Elspeth..

The novel, which covers the entire war, is also a bildungsroman taking Nancy from girlhood to adulthood. At times, the pat, Hail-Britannia stiff-upper lip theme became irritating. Mostly, however, I was absorbed in the story line, which is well plotted with only a few slow interludes. The determination of the women and girls to survive using nothing but determination, resourcefulness, and principle almost leaped off the page in some chapters. Gaynor's character development is fairly solid throughout, so if you are looking for engaging characters to accompany to fictional wartime hell and back, this book may be a good choice. Teachers who like historical fiction may like the depiction of education against almost impossible odds.

A rebellious librarian character, Edwina Trevellyan, who is Scottish, was my favorite. Edwina provides a more worldly influence than the teachers as the schoolgirls become women and start asking "improper" questions. This pulls against the book's puritanical bent with the constant "A Guide always does this" and "A Guide never does that.". Some bad stuff is permitted to happen despite everyone's amazing British character and there are lasting scars. At least one of the students breaks bad and does what Guides Never Do in order to ensure her survival, which is another touch of realism that the novel badly needs in my opinion.

Edwina demonstrates that sometimes it takes more than a stiff upper lip to survive, and by the time the camp was liberated in 1945, I was ready to give the book four stars. Unfortunately, Gaynor added several endings in an attempt to pull on my heartstrings. This tactic was so obvious that it nearly spoiled the book for me, but I identified very much, in different ways, with Elspeth and Edwina.

This is a well done historical fiction about an aspect of WWII that I knew some about but was unfamiliar to me in many ways.. This book describes a missionary school in China during the war that soon is taken over by the Japanese. I really liked that the story is told from multiple characters to give the reader different perspectives of what it is like to be a teacher caring for children under dire circumstances and what it is like to be a child in an interment camp while far from family. We experience all their emotions as they try to cope with their horrid conditions.
The saga begins at the school before the Japanese soldiers arrive, follows the characters through their hardships in internment camps, and covers liberation with a glimpse into the years to come.
Really well written and a great look into another side of the war.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

A five star book to read! I can't speak highly enough of this book. A must read for anyone who loves historical fiction.

Enjoyed very much and learned about an event I had never heard of. Thisbook will be enjoyed by many

The story of private school children and their teacher, as they are sent to an internment camp during WWII. The author is known for her historical fiction and this does not disappoint.