WINNER OF THE NERO BOOK AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S FICTION 2025
One of the Telegraph’s 50 BEST CHILDREN’S BOOKS OF ALL TIME
The stunning novel from Jamila Gavin, bestselling and award-winning author of Coram Boy and The Wheel of Surya.
“Flawless” — Telegraph
Based on the true story of Indian WWI gunner and recipient of the Victoria Cross, Khudadad Khan. The story is told from four perspectives: Lotte, a Belgian farmgirl whose village is the flashpoint for a battle; Ernst, a German teenage cavalry soldier whose grandiose dreams of war lie in tatters; Khudadad Khan, the gunner fighting with the British Army; and a wild walnut tree.


When Lotte’s farm is destroyed in the fighting, she and her sister flee with their young neighbour Michael, to take refuge beneath the walnut tree on the ridge — a ridge currently being defended from the encroaching Germans by Indian gunner Khudadad Khan. There, they are joined by traumatised German soldier Ernst, whose horse lies lost in the trenches of the battle raging below. As their perspectives converge, their shared humanity emerges as a light in the darkness of war, safe beneath the branches of the walnut tree that shelters them all.