Goodnight Mister Tom

Story

William Beech lives in Deptford, London, with his abusive mother. In 1939, with the threat of German bombers, he is evacuated to the safety of the countryside. He ends up in Little Weirwold, under the guardianship of “Mister Tom”, a grumpy elderly man. Neither William nor Tom are quite as they seem, however, and as a tentative friendship grows between them, Mister Tom begins to shed his bad temper. But then William is called back to London by his mother…

Why we chose it

A wartime story that has become a modern classic.

Where it came from

When Michelle Magorian began writing Goodnight Mister Tom, she was working as a theatre actress. She took inspiration from a song in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, which lists lots of colours: the green and brown in the song made her think of a young boy and an old man, and the idea was born. The first draft took her three years to write, and the second draft another year after that.

Magorian chose the title because she wanted to focus on both William and Mister Tom. Although William himself isn’t named in the title, he says the phrase “goodnight, Mister Tom” in the book.

Where it went next

Goodnight Mister Tom won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 1982, the year after it was published. It has won several other awards and is regarded by many people as a classic. In 1998, the book was made into a film, and it has also been a play and a musical (twice!).

Associated stories

In 1984, Magorian published Back Home, another story about a WWII evacuee: a 12-year-old girl returning to Britain after five years living in the US. Although not a sequel, Back Home has some similarities with Goodnight Mister Tom.