If you grew up as I did on Noel Streatfeild's "Shoe" books, you will find "Saplings" to be both strange and familiar. A novel for adults, it is the examination of the sad, steady disintegration of a happy middle-class London family because of war.

Streatfeild's "Shoe" books -- "Ballet Shoes," "Theater Shoes" and the others -- were children's novels about plucky girls, orphaned or displaced because of World War II, forced to grow up quickly and find their calling early in order to survive. Her plots were always engaging, her voice always measured, but her significant skill lay in her acute ability to see the world through the eyes of children.

In "Saplings," this ability is as keen as ever. But this is a harsher book, her characters less cheery and resilient. It follows siblings Laurel, Tony, Kim and baby Tuesday after their father dies in a bombing raid and their vain and needy mother turns to drink to dull her grief. The children are survivors, but each survives in a different way and with significant damage. The book is, above all else, an intimate and devastating look at the fallout of war.

First published in 1945, "Saplings" has been out of print for decades, brought back this summer by Persephone Books, which reissues fiction by 20th-century writers, primarily women.