On Wings to the Stars
Eliza is eleven, and she feels very alone. The one person she feels close to in her family is her great-grandmother, whom she calls Ganny. The great-grandmother came to live with the family two years previously after having a stroke. She gives Eliza a journal kept by her older brother, John, who died in 1942 while on operations with the RAF.
The book primarily occupies two timelines. Eliza’s is in the present, around 2021, and John’s is in 1941 and 1942, mostly in Malta. This is an unexplored facet of the conflict of World War Two. Poels evokes the chalky caves and the separateness of an island like Malta. She also points out that Malta was the only island to be awarded the George Cross for the bravery of all the islanders, who often felt overlooked in the distribution of supplies. During this period the islanders and those stationed there nearly starved.
Two characters in this narrative are ghosts. Poels develops a discussion of whether ghosts are real and whether their reality matters to people who love them. It is a clever device which works for about ninety percent of the novel.
