For a long while I have been quietly working on a book that I've called The River Child. Here's what happened — while I was researching Once Upon a Wardrobe, I was struck by a tidbit of 1939 British history.
In England, in Operation Pied Piper, children from large cities were sent away from their families to protect them from bombings. With luggage tags around their necks, gas masks dangling from their knapsacks, and a stamped addressed note for their parents when they found out where they’d end up, these children were bundled onto trains and ships and sent off to unknown locations.