Spying on Miss Müller

April 3, 1995
A nostalgic look at life in a Belfast boarding school during WWII sweetens the impact of this heartfelt examination of the meaning of loyalty. Miss Muller, the language teacher whom all the girls once worshiped, is now the object of their suspicions. It's bad enough that she's German, but her furtive late-night walks seem to coincide with enemy air raids--could Miss Muller be a spy? Against her kinder instincts, the narrator, Jessie, gets caught up in her classmates' clandestine investigation. Also involved is Greta Ludowski, a vindictive Jewish refugee from Poland. Because Bunting makes such a persuasive case for looking below the surface, it's especially disturbing that the novel's one true villainess turns out to be Greta, whose single-minded, nearly cartoonish vengefulness (``You have no right to be in the company of decent people'') is almost glibly passed off as the result of her having ``been through too many horrors. Still, there is much to enjoy here, not least the boarding school ambience deftly conveyed in numerous quirky details (``The most embarrassing thing was to have a space between the top of your stockings and the elastic of your knickers,'' Jessie confides at one point). An author's note gives a clue to the authenticity of the atmosphere: Bunting herself attended a school in Belfast that ``strangely resembled'' the one here. Ages 9-13.

May 1, 1995
Gr 5-7-A story set in a Belfast boarding school during World War II. What starts out as a routine school story ends up as a sympathetic portrayal of the tensions and deep friendships formed under the pressure of communal living. Jessie and her close friends are suspicious of a half-German teacher who supervises their dormitory. Their suspicions about Miss Muller grow when they experience their first air raid on the same night that Jessie spots the woman going out late at night. The use of telling details defines the girls and the faculty members so that the fast-moving plot has an inevitability that rings true. The tension is relieved throughout with welcome threads of humor peaking with a scene in the air-raid shelter during which the girls and boys, who are usually kept firmly apart, find themselves in very close quarters indeed. This entry is a welcome addition to the growing list of books about children during the Second World War.-Amy Kellman, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

Starred review from March 15, 1995
Gr. 6^-8. As World War II begins to rage, 13-year-old Jessie and her friends at Belfast's Alvera boarding school have their eye on a spy. Although Jessie has always been fond of Miss Muller, now that the war's started, the teacher's half-German ancestry is raising suspicions. Jessie herself sees Miss Muller climbing to a bell tower in the middle of the night, and when bombs hit Belfast the next day, Jessie and her dorm-mates think Miss Muller may be involved in some way. Bunting makes this more than a spy story, though. She catches with precision the undercurrent of excitement that unexpected events, even potentially devastating ones, can bring, and she shows how teenagers' concerns are always paramount no matter what. (Jessie's first experience with a nighttime bombing raid also leads to her first kiss, and guess which takes precedence in her mind.) Bunting also does well with a subplot that links Miss Muller's Nazi father and Jessie's alcoholic dad, clearly showing how love can stand side by side with despair. And while this is not as strong as Lisle's "Sirens and Spies" (1985), which had a similar theme, "Spying on Miss Muller" is both highly readable and readily ponderable--an excellent combination. ((Reviewed Mar. 15, 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)