A distant melody

4.5 stars
Christian message: Five stars. It's rare now to find an author willing to take on the issue of lies and their consequences, especially “white lies” or deception by silence. Walt has an issue with making a good story, or smoothing things over, by taking a smudge of truth and stretching it, or by letting appearances speak for themselves. Allie, on the other hand, has lived her life keeping her mouth shut in order to keep the peace with her parents, instead of speaking out and standing on her beliefs. Both decisions are destined to sever this well-matched pair. The question is, if they can work their way back to each other. I loved that both are strong Christians and are wanting to seek God in prayer and Bible study.

Clean: Four stars. Two inappropriate innuendoes about Baxter (one was condemned later on, but not exactly cleared up.) Several instances of Walt enjoying the view of Allie's bare legs a trifle much, and one of him snapping pictures of her in her bathing suit. Thank goodness they moved beyond the throbs and started building a real friendship. I'd say 14+ because of those bits.

Story/characters: Five stars. Such a tale! I loved Walt and Allie so much. Their verbal sparring at the beginning had me totally on their side...especially the cow thing, which had me laughing aloud. Their friends were a colorful bunch, and the war casualties squeezed my heart way too much.

History: so wonderful! My granddad was a bombardier (loaded/fired the bombs out of the bombers) in Europe at this time, so it was neat to get a picture of what he did. I love books with this much historical detail.

Extra touch: you can't see it here, but the plane is actually painted as described. “Flossie's Fort,” name and all. Though, honestly, I'd pictured the painting of Flossie to look more like the Borden cow, only in a bomber jacket!