"Goodnight Mister Tom" is a "Puffin Modern Classic" by Michelle Magorian.

Young Willie Beech is evacuated to the country as Britain stands on the brink of the Second World War.

A sad, deprived child, he slowly begins to flourish under the care of old Tom Oakley - but his new-found happiness is shattered by a summons from his mother back in London...Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. "The best books grow old gracefully. They retain their importance and affect each new generation as powerfully as the one before.

These are the titles selected for "Puffin Modern Classics"". (Julia Eccleshare). Michelle Magorian was born in Portsmouth and on leaving school studied at the Rose Bruford College of speech and Drama and Marcel Marceau's International School of Mime in Paris.

Over the years she became interested in children's books and decided to write one herself.

The result was "Goodnight Mister Tom", which won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, an International Reading Association Award and was also made into a superb film starring the late John Thor. Also by Michelle Magorian: "Goodnight Mister Tom"; "Back Home"; "Waiting for my Shorts to Dry"; "Who's Going to take Care of Me?"; "Orange Paw Marks"; "A Little Love Song"; "In Deep Water"; "Jump"; "A Cuckoo in the Nest"; "A Spoonful of Jam"; "Be Yourself"; and "Just Henry".