The Last Post

The Last Post is a story of love, hope and legacy set during WWI at Christmas. It tells a terrible, tragic story beautifully and makes the difficult connection between something that might seem a long time ago to today’s children, to their own family’s history – which hopefully they would be inspired to research. 

The story shows the increasing poignant correspondence between a father, struggling with life on the Front, and his son back home. William just wants his father back for Christmas. After all, everyone said the war would be over by then, didn’t they? When William hears word of the Christmas truce, he believes all his prayers have been answered. 

A perfect book for children in upper key stage 2 of primary school, who like to be challenged in their reading, but can find long novels overwhelming. The book is also well-suited for teachers teaching a WWI topic and can be used as the inspiration for numerous writing tasks. It also has helpful guided/shared reading discussion questions, and WWI research ideas included.