Mr Mac and Me

A friendship develops between Thomas Maggs, a young boy growing up in a seaside English village, and the Scottish artist and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who comes to the village for convalescence. War has just been declared between England and Germany (1915), and village life gets a little harder because of it. The Maggs family has its own difficulties, which weigh heavily on Thomas.

This is a quietly beautiful, moving book. I look forward to re-reading it in a year or so.