Forming bonds in a time of war

It's the summer of 1943, and for twelve-year-old Celie Marsh the war seems awfully close to her coastal Massachusetts home. She worries about bombs and submarines, and about her big brother, who can't wait to go off and fight. Her little brother doesn't seem to need her anymore, and her best friend has moved away. When her father brings Charley, a monkey, home from work one day, Celie finds the comforting companion she has been missing. But more upheaval is in store: irritating Joey Bentley moves in with his crabby grandmother next door, her mother takes a job building warships, and worst of all, Charley proves to be too wild for Celie to manage. A near disaster forces Celie to make a heart-wrenching decision that teaches her painful lessons about friendship, family, and the meaning of love.

This tender novel about relationships, based on the author's mother's experience, is elegantly crafted and suffused with warmth, as well as with a powerful sense of time and place.