Author: Eve Bunting

Eve Bunting wrote for young readers across picture books, novels, historical fiction, and stories about difficult moral choices. Spying on Miss Muller, published by Clarion in 1995, draws on her experience at a Belfast boarding school during the Second World War. Thirteen-year-old Jessie and her classmates begin to suspect their partly German teacher, allowing Bunting to examine fear, rumor, loyalty, and the harm caused by wartime prejudice. The book is children’s fiction rooted in Bunting’s own school years in Northern Ireland. The published title is also commonly styled Spying on Miss Müller, preserving the teacher’s German surname. Bunting’s large bibliography often asks children to look beyond first impressions and consider how public events enter ordinary lives. Here, the enclosed school setting turns international conflict into a personal test of judgment, making the novel both a suspenseful investigation and a study of empathy.