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Megan Rix's Emmeline and the Plucky Pup is a history story for 7 year olds about a messenger boy for the suffragettes and the scruffy puppy he rescues.
It starts one night in 1906. Alfie is fast asleep in a Manchester workhouse when his big sister Daisy shakes him awake. They're running away! Through a cemetery in the dark, along the river in the rain, all the way to Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst's front door.
Mrs Pankhurst takes them in. Daisy becomes her maid and Alfie becomes her messenger boy (and he gets bread and jam, which is a very big deal after workhouse gruel).
Four years later, in London, Alfie meets a skinny little Staffie puppy who has just pinched a sheep's trotter from a market stall. Half the errand boys in the square are chasing her. He names her Rascal, and Mrs Pankhurst decides a boy with a puppy is the perfect disguise for delivering secret messages.
Rascal is gorgeous. She gets a bath in a sink at Caxton Hall, drinks straight from the tap and cheers up a whole room of worn-out women. Who wouldn't want a puppy like that on their side?
What makes the book special is how much real history is in it. Votes for Women sashes, a march on Parliament, a lady in a tricycle wheelchair charging the police line with her crutches. Your reader meets real people and hears why they cared so much.
The march turns rough. Police push women to the ground, twist an arm behind a back and charge on horses, and Rascal nearly gets trampled. Alfie's mum died in the workhouse, and his friend Harry has died of an illness before the main story begins. None of it is described in a gory way, but it's sad and it's real.
A little one who is upset by people being hurt might need a grown-up close by for those chapters. If your reader is curious about why some people once weren't allowed to vote, it's a lovely gentle way in.
If a real historical figure plus a lovable animal is a winning mix, try Winston and the Marmalade Cat next. A boy who helps out at an animal rescue centre gets sent with a very special birthday present to Winston Churchill's house.
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