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.

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.

Hilary McKay is surely the heir to Mary Wesley. The Skylarks’ War is just lovely.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

…a family book, like those of Noel Streatfeild or R F Delderfield… I find it hard to imagine anyone not enjoying it. You will smile, and you will cry… You will recognise yourself and your friends

wise and kind and utterly heart-wrenching and full of characters you will give your whole heart to

McKay is a superb writer, deftly spinning history into a family drama of emotional neglect, shameful secrets, unrequited love, loss and ultimate triumph over all of these in a funny, moving and emotionally insightful book that could, and should, be read by all ages.

Quite simply, The Skylarks’ War is close to perfect. Wise, kind, witty and incredibly moving it will break your heart and remake it again a few times over.

The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay rivals Testament of Youth for delicacy and heart-wringing clarity in its portrayal of the home front during the First World War.

a funny, moving and emotionally insightful book that could, and should, be read by all ages

A moving family story.

The best children’s book I’ve read this year

Hilary McKay has a rare gift for novels about families and their interplay. Here, she weaves her story round one of the most powerful backdrops in history. And she does so with the lightest of touch which makes her history come alive.