List price: $8.95
Pages: 144
Format: Paperback
ISBN:  978-0974648149
Publisher: Brown Barn Books

What happens when three London kids who explore a long-abandoned World War II air-raid shelter find themselves in the 1940's?

Without homes, identities, or the ration books they need to buy food, they must avoid dangers ranging from a direct hit from the bombs of the Blitz falling each night, to authorities who suspect them of being spies.

How can Sophie, Marina and Quigs survive long enough to find out how to travel in time to get home to the 21st century?

Our Choice 2005
The Canadian Children's Book Centre

What Reviewers
are Saying About this Book

  The book is intriguing…And spellbinding…I am not going to divulge the many twists and turns the story takes but I can say this: you just cannot read "The Secret Shelter" without having a lump in your throat.
                                                                     –BookWire Review November 2004

     Sophie Pinkerton, a high school student growing up in present-day London, shares both a curiosity and history assignment with her friends about what their neighborhood would have been like during World War II. “Leave the past alone,” warns old Mr. Martin, who seems to have a special knowledge of what may await them. However, Sophie, Marina, Quigs, and their teacher, Mr. Schmidt, insist on exploring the old air-raid shelter buried on the school grounds, and find themselves transported back to 1940, where they meet Quigs’ ancestors. The danger is great from both the cruelties of war and the possible discovery of their true identities especially for German-born Mr. Schmidt. Le Faucheur has written a real page-turner, somewhat akin to Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic (Viking, 1988), and the resolution of the story contains some imaginative twists. Even minor characters are well developed and interesting, and the historical facts are woven seamlessly into the story. Excellent for “what if” discussions
                                                  
                                                              School Library Journal, January 2005   

Born in England, Sandi LeFaucheur crossed the Atlantic several times before settling in South London . As a secretary in the school in which The Secret Shelter takes place, Sandi was intrigued by the WWII air-raid shelter buried beneath the front lawn. As she couldn’t excavate it, she decided to write about what could be down there, and what might befall anyone foolish enough to enter…

 Sandi, her husband, teenage son, and elderly Golden Retriever bounced one final time across the Atlantic in 2000. They now live in a small town in the rolling hills of Southern Ontario .

“Leave the past alone, I said, but no. You wouldn’t listen. Well, you’ve found the perishing shelter, so let’s get on with it, if the door will even open. Been shut for over half a century.”  

The hinges groaned and screamed in protest as Mr. Schmidt slowly wrenched the door open. At last, the door gave up the struggle and we gazed down into the gaping chasm of the shelter. I leaned forward and peered into the darkness as Mr. Schmidt flashed his torch around.  

“The stairs are still here.” He tested one gently with his foot. “They appear to be sound. Who shall go first?”  

Quigs forgot to be bored. His eyes shone eagerly. He leaped down the stairs two at a time, with Marina and me close behind him. The air smelled damp and stale, sort of mushroomy. The thought of slugs and slowworms slithered through my mind. I had to force myself not to charge back up the moldy, slime-covered stairs to the comfort of the June sunshine.  

“Wouldn’t listen. Told you to leave the past alone,” Mr. Martin’s querulous voice wafted down.  

I reached up to help him down the stairs. A shiver ran through me as he placed his clammy hand in mine and crept slowly downwards.