Book reviews
The Lancet
‘Nightingale’s own story in East London is written into beautifully crafted chapters ... Each is a sensitive and generous encounter between a storyteller and a listener in all the complexity of their past and present identities and experiences.’
Jewish Renaissance
‘Her personal and warm relationship with those she interviews shines through the pages.’
Journal of Family History
‘Nightingale has produced a deeply moving, tear-jerking, and rewarding volume, which puts childhood experiences, often ignored in the history of migration, at center stage. Most importantly the voices of former child migrants come through.’
Hackney Citizen
‘Nightingale’s sensitive collation of stories is remarkable for the sheer diversity of the experiences it details.’
LDN Whitechapel
‘Each chapter feels like a mini-memoir, with the interesting life stories of each person given full space to shine through.’
Network Newsletter
‘This terrific new book draws together 16 oral histories, starting with two children who arrived from Austria in 1938 and concluding with a child who arrived from Ukraine in 2022 … highly recommended.’
Refugee Week
‘It is child migrants’ powerful testimonies that shed light on their motivations, trials and achievements including in adult life. Such testimonies provide critical insight into how the British – both individually and collectively – have welcomed or shunned child migrants.’
Oral History
‘I had always wanted to incorporate the stories into a book of interest beyond academia but there were various challenges as to how to achieve this.’
Childhood Law and Policy Network Interview
‘Whilst the book draws on a range of academic disciplines it is the child migrant stories that drive this the book ensuring its broad appeal to families or communities with a history of migration, those working with, or studying the experiences of, child migrants or to people interested in powerful life stories.’
Good Reads
‘A wonderful sprawling account of child migration through oral histories from 1930s to now. The prose was beautiful and allowed a rich exploration of everyone’s stories … it was accessible and easy to follow, with a healthy dose of scathing critique of the government’s recent immigration acts.’
Jacqueline Bhabha
"A remarkably extensive cast of players, a real testament to the extraordinary wealth that migration has brought to Britain." Jacqueline Bhabha, Harvard University, USA
Aimée Massey
“Absolutely captivating. And emotional... I couldn't stop reading." Aimée Massey, Chichester Festival Theatre