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88 pages 2 hours read

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

The War That Saved My Life

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015

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Chapters 26-31Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 26 Summary

Susan shows Ada how to write her own name, but she doesn’t press the issue and leaves Ada to try it again on her own later. Ada resists asking for help, though, and is unable to read a letter she receives from Margaret. Jamie can’t read the loopy handwriting, and Ada refuses to ask Susan for help. She asks Grimes instead, and he informs her that Margaret’s letter expresses her interest in riding together when she visits home for Christmas. Ada asserts that she’s not likely to still be here at Christmas: “The war will be over by then [...] Mam’ll send for us” (182). Ada resists the idea that her life in the village could be anything more than temporary and tries to think about the good parts of her life back in London, triggering fond memories of Mam and Jamie. Ada wants Mam to be more like Susan, but she doesn’t trust Susan entirely just yet. 

Chapter 27 Summary

Dr. Graham declares Jamie and Ada to be “the picture of health” (185) at their follow-up exam. Jamie is two inches taller, Ada is three inches taller, and both have gained healthy weight. Surgery is necessary to fix Ada’s foot, though, and Mam still hasn’t responded to Susan’s letter. In the meantime, the doctor shows Susan how to massage Ada’s bad foot, as that’s better than no treatment at all. Susan massages Ada’s foot nightly and fashions her a house shoe to be more comfortable. She also teaches Ada to sew and knit and crafts a pair of riding mittens for her, but Ada is reluctant to accept the gesture.

Meanwhile, volunteers build a bomb shelter for the Smiths in their garden. Stephen White is among the boys volunteering to build bomb shelters, and he confronts Ada about the repeated declined invitations to tea. Ada confesses that she doesn’t know what to expect or how to conduct herself at a tea, which Stephen laughs, pointing out that he’s sure she drinks tea every day. He invites her to tea once more, insisting that she’ll like the Colonel once she gets to know him.

Chapter 28 Summary

The season turns and Susan, who typically falls into a mood of winter gloom, is “almost too busy to be sad” (195) this winter. Ada notices Susan’s change in mood and tries to be helpful, then asks Susan to teach her to read, knowing the activity will keep Susan from staying in bed all day. Ada begins leaving small notes around the house, some so nonsensical they make Jamie giggle, others more practical to let Susan know her whereabouts.

Christmas is near, and Susan still hasn’t heard from Mam, despite inviting her to spend Christmas with them. Jamie is persistent in his visits to the airfield and makes friends with the pilots, whom he later invites to Susan’s home for Christmas dinner. Margaret returns home for the holiday as well, but she’s upset at Ada for not writing back to her. Ada confesses that her lack of response is because she’s only now learning to read and write. Ada doesn’t expect Margaret’s reaction: “Instead of looking horrified by my ignorance, she looked mollified” (201). Once Margaret is given a logical reason, she’s no longer upset at Ada for not writing to her.

Chapter 29 Summary

The girls ride on together, Ada jumping Butter over a couple of small logs along the way in “little soaring jumps, my first” (202). Her riding and jumping continue to improve under Grimes’s coaching.

Susan takes Ada and Jamie to cut a tree for Christmas. Ada asks what Christmas has to do with God, revealing that she doesn’t understand or absorb the material from her weekly church outings. The only Christmas ornaments Susan has are from Becky and unpacking them brings her to tears, so she shows Ada and Jamie how to make ornaments of their own. Margaret informs Ada that she needs to have a Christmas gift for Susan, so Ada accepts wool from Grimes to begin knitting Christmas gifts.

Chapter 30 Summary

Ada knows it will look suspicious if she stays in her room all day to knit, but she doesn’t want Susan to see the gifts she’s crafting. Susan also has gifts to work on, so Ada knits upstairs while Susan sews downstairs, giving one another space to allow their gifts to be surprises on Christmas. Susan sews a green velvet dress as a gift for Ada, but Ada can’t bring herself to touch something so beautiful. Susan insists that Ada is beautiful, but Ada refuses to believe her. The generosity and compliments from Susan are overwhelming for Ada, and she slips into a panic-induced tantrum.

Chapter 31 Summary

The Smiths miss church in the morning. Susan restrains Ada with blankets during her panic attack and they all sleep downstairs together. When she awakens, Ada sees the aftermath of the previous night’s tantrum and panics again. She trusts that Susan won’t hit her, but Susan could still be angry enough to send Ada away.

Susan wakes up in a pleasant mood, though, and sends Ada and Jamie upstairs to freshen up. When they come back downstairs, they find brightly wrapped gifts under the tree. Jamie is surprised to see gifts for Ada despite her being bad. Susan insists that Ada is only sad, angry, and frightened, but not a bad person. The gifts and kindness are overwhelming for Ada, and she can’t understand why. She doesn’t want to ruin Christmas for Jamie, so she tries escaping inside her head, but Susan pulls her back to the present. Susan understands that Ada is feeling overwhelmed and allows her to go visit Butter. They begin reading Alice in Wonderland, and Ada relates to the sensation of falling down a rabbit hole: “We had fallen down a rabbit hole, fallen into Susan’s house, and nothing made sense, not at all, not anymore” (223).

Chapters 26-31 Analysis

Susan figures out that Ada prefers to learn things for herself rather than be helped. Her method of introducing Ada to writing her own name gives Ada enough curiosity and determination to try it on her own later, placing her on a pathway to learning while still giving Ada freedom to control that learning.

Ada hesitates to embrace her new living situation because she isn’t certain that it’s permanent. There’s a constant possibility that Mam could show up at any moment and take Ada and Jamie back to London, so Ada doesn’t want to become too attached to things or people in Kent. Susan didn’t want to take in any children, so her growing affection for Ada and Jamie is confusing to Ada. At this point in the novel, Ada doesn’t know that Mam never wanted children either, and she comes to the conclusion that Mam must love her simply by virtue of being her Mam. Ada is confused by the emotions of missing someone who is ashamed of her and very well may hate her, but who could also potentially love her.

The trip back to Dr. Graham showcases the transformations Ada and Jamie have experienced since escaping from London. It also results in more regular physical contact between Ada and Susan, as Susan begins massaging Ada’s foot regularly per the doctor’s suggestion. Susan has never been disgusted by Ada’s clubfoot and gently massages it to help her gain flexibility, something nobody has ever done for Ada in the past. It’s also significant that Ada is able to sit down with Susan and hold a conversation while being touched; she no longer goes away into her own mind at the touch of another person.

Jumping over even small logs demonstrates improved strength and confidence in both Ada and Butter. Ada is taking small but certain steps toward recovering from her previous malnourishment and crushed self-confidence. Despite these steps forward, Ada is still susceptible to overwhelming emotions she doesn’t understand, such as her reaction to Susan telling her that she’s beautiful. As a child who is not used to kindness, Ada has trouble reacting to Susan’s affection. 

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