The Skylarks' War

Winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award

By: Hilary McKay

Narrated by: Katherine Press

Winner of the Costa Children’s Book Award 2018.

The Skylarks' War is a beautiful story following the loves and losses of a family growing up against the harsh backdrop of World War One, from the award-winning Hilary McKay.

Clarry and her older brother Peter live for their summers in Cornwall, staying with their grandparents and running free with their charismatic cousin, Rupert. But normal life resumes each September – boarding school for Peter and Rupert, and a boring life for Clarry at home with her absent father, as the shadow of a terrible war looms ever closer.

When Rupert goes off to fight at the front, Clarry feels their skylark summers are finally slipping away from them. Can their family survive this fearful war?

Critic reviews

McKay is at her best in this poignant family drama.

Picking up a book by Hilary McKay is like slipping on bed socks on a chilly night. She knows how to look after her readers by ensuring that her characters are interesting and loveable from the start . . . McKay’s cleverness is that she makes it all fresh and new while making these beautifully drawn characters feel like old friends.

This belongs among the classic of children’s literature . . . Funny, sad, warm, it is about growing up and finding what you love, intellectually and emotionally.

This book is agony and ecstasy, and never have I read such a human and accessible account of World War I. Vivid, hilarious, and heartbreaking, Hilary McKay’s radiant characters touch my heart like real people, friends and loved ones I know well. Possibly the finest writer of our time. (Elizabeth Wein, New York Times-bestselling author of Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief)

This is McKay at her finest, all the heart and warmth of the Casson family books - with a touch of the Cazalets. It's both a thrilling family adventure and a truthful, heart-breaking examination of the impact of war... [an] exceptional historical novel. (Fiona Noble)

Hilary McKay is surely the heir to Mary Wesley. The Skylarks' War is just lovely. (Charlotte Eyre, The Bookseller)

The Skylarks' War is bloody brilliant, the kind of classic that rings with beauty and conviction and heart-stopping emotion. Not read a novel this good since Eva Ibbotson died. (Amanda Craig)

Hilary McKay is one of the great writers of children’s fiction and this story of love and loss during the First World War is one of her best, told with unflinching wisdom. (Sarah Hughes)

Hilary McKay is a genius. This beautiful book is so many things simultaneously: complex and subtle, beautiful and raw, timely and timeless. I never wanted it to end. (Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock, Carnegie-shortlisted author of The Smell of Other People's Houses)

One of my favourite books of the year, this is McKay at her absolute finest. (Fiona Noble)

I laughed, I cried and I wanted all the characters to be my best friend

Winning as ever, with an overall Secret Garden feel

What a brilliant book. I laughed, I blubbed. The painful jolt of the Great War to one family carefully told.

I thoroughly loved The Skylarks' War. The story is at once intimate and sweeping, with Clarry the shining heart of it all. (Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, author of The War That Saved My Life)

Hilary McKay’s novel is about love as much as war: the effect on children of being deprived of it and the beneficial results on adults of its persistence. McKay is incapable of writing an uninteresting character or a dull scene... I loved it.

McKay couples warmth and grace with wry humour like nobody else out there (Katherine Rundell)