In the book "Goodnight Mister Tom" the novel by Michelle Magorian. The novel is about a young boy, known as William Beech who is evacuated to a small village in the Midlands called, "Weirwold" during World War 2. William a young boy with little or no education at all, from London. He has come from a bad background, his mother is severely mistreated him in many ways, such as beat him silly with the belt for doing nothing and stick him in a cupboard for thinking or saying something she didn't like, she would leave him in the cupboard for days on end. The best way to describe William, before he was living in Weirwold was that he was very disturbed boy and had little or no education at all. His mother is a religious fanatic and has urges.
When William is evacuated, his mother asks him to be placed with someone with strong religious beliefs or a house that is near a church. Which proves that Williams Mother is a total religious fanatic. So that meant he was placed with an old grumpy man named, "Tom Oakley." Tom has fairly strong religious believes and lives next to a churchyard. At first Tom was unhappy and unsure about taking the boy but he was in the end forced to take him. He been lonely ever since his wife and daughter died of the scarlet fever back in the first World War and has never been able to move on from there death. Over the year's people in the village have come to dislike him. But as he looks after William his character begins to change and begins to look at William as his own son. So my description of Tom is that he is a grumpy old man but deep down has a heart of gold. And as William stayed with Tom he began to change vastly in many ways. Such as he finally learnt how to read and write, he discovered he had a talent (art), he also made friends and was able to play without getting into trouble and was given more encouragement in the things he done.