RATING: GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
This is a short book about Mr Chipping, who was nicknamed Mr Chips by his students. We get to know Mr Chips as he came to teach in Brookfield, a public school for boys, and he became the headmaster. In his old age everybody assumes that he is a bachelor, but Mr Chips was married once. He met his wife, Kathie, a younger woman, when she was hiking in the mountains and helping a friend who had a fall. Meeting Kathie made him less strict in his views about feminism and other issues. Kathie, though, died a year later in childbirth. Mr Chips was left brokenhearted, lonely and without even the child she was expecting.
The book narrates the years of the war when Chips had to return to teaching and become headmaster again. After the war, he retired and moved to the guesthouse opposite, and he often invited boys to tea. He knew all the children.
In the last chapter a boy knocks at the door and tells him that he had been told he was wanted, which was a joke from other boys. Chips invites him to tea, and the boy goes, saying Goodbye, Mr Chips. Then Chips has a turn, and the next day he is surrounded by the doctor, his landlady and the school headmaster. At some point one says that it is a pity he had no children, and Chips opens his eyes to say that he did have children, lots of them, all of those who were his students. That was a very emotional moment. Then Mr Chips dies.
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