Every few years, a new Cavell-for-kids biography appears, and this offering by Jack Batten is a welcome update to the collection. Targeting many of the discrepancies and myths found in previous books, Batten aims for accuracy in telling the story of the British-born nurse who’s internationally renowned as a First World War resistance fighter, heroine, and martyr.

Batten, a prolific author and recipient of the 2002 Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction (for The Man Who Ran Faster Than Everyone), engages the reader’s interest immediately by introducing Edith Cavell just as the Germans make a surprise visit to her medical clinic in Belgium, hoping to find Allied soldiers in hiding. The following 11 chapters – except for one on Florence Nightingale and her impact on 19th-century nursing – trace Cavell’s life chronologically from her Victorian childhood to her arrest and execution by a German firing squad, an act that horrified the world and made her name a rallying cry for recruiting Allied forces.

With its sepia-toned cover image, 30-plus black-and-white photos, selected bibliography, and multi-page index, Silent in an Evil Time is an attractive, informative, and engaging introduction to Cavell. However, it isn’t without quirks and disappointments. Young readers unfamiliar with the origin of the title (which is an excerpt from Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ) are more likely to perceive “silent” as a negative rather than positive quality. Batten’s descriptions of the causes of the First World War are either simplistic or brilliantly simple. Information that Cavell hid documents raises unanswered questions: What documents? Who found them? When? Batten’s tendency toward melodrama and stereotyping (German officers rubbing their hands with satisfaction over Cavell’s admission of guilt, for example) is unnecessary and, occasionally, unsettling.
    Still, Silent in an Evil Time will appeal to readers interested in biographies and nursing, and will support studies on the First World War, famous women, and heroines.