Christine Chaundler (1887–1972)

Fifteen-year-old Geraldine Wilmott, nervous, shy, and much traumatized by a horrific experience during an air raid in the recent war (WWI), had been educated her entire life at home, and had only recently been cleared by her doctor to attend school. Unfortunately, her first term as a new girl, in the Lower Fifth at Wakehurst Priory, was a disaster from the very beginning. Inadvertently making enemies of the influential Phyllis Tressider and Dorothy Pemberton, when she was assigned to Dorothy's former cubicle in the Rose Dormitory, she soon found herself the target of a determined bullying campaign, made all the worse by her fear of everything from mice to hockey. Nicknamed "German Gerry" by her peers, because of her skill at speaking German, and relentlessly ridiculed, Gerry was the loneliest, most unhappy girl in the school. Even the kindness of head girl Muriel Paget, who took her under her wing, and coached her a bit with hockey, didn't seem to help...

Although I found Just Gerry to be an immensely engaging book, in many ways - it drew me right in, and kept me reading: so engrossed that I finished the book in one sitting - there is simply no denying that it is also a distasteful little period piece, full of nationalistic zeal (perhaps not surprising, given that this was published in 1920, between the two World Wars), and a particularly vicious kind of bullying and group culture. It was really very difficult to read of poor Gerry's travails, and not think of similar stories I have heard (or witnessed), that ended very sadly indeed. Of course there is a nominally 'happy' ending here (resting upon some supremely unlikely heroics), but it comes rather late in the story, and in no way compensates for all the ugliness that preceded it. It also rests on the conclusive demonstration of the fact that Gerry is not German, rather than on any recognition of the idea that persecuting someone for nationalistic reasons is both idiotic and ethically repugnant.**

I really struggled, when it came to rating this one, between two and three stars, only settling on three because the narrative did keep me so involved. I've read a number of school stories which, despite some dated elements, I would not hesitate to give to contemporary youngsters, but I don't think this would be amongst them. Unless as a history lesson, perhaps...

**I should note that, in addition to the almost ubiquitous anti-German sentiment throughout, which is used as an excuse to gang up on Gerry, there is also an anti-Semitic aside, in one of the scenes.… (mehr)