Book - war time - main characters are children

Fiction (I think)
I read this book in the 90's, I'd picked it up second-hand so I'm not sure when it was written.
The book was set around wartime and is mainly from the perspective of a female child, there is a boy around the same age who is also quite central. I think the book was set somewhere in Europe
In the book, soldiers live in a house with the girl, her mother and others for a while
The most vivid part of the book I can remember is when the girl and the boy found bags of dried food and ate salty dried noodles
I think at some point the children also crammed dried fruit into their mouths and grinned with fruit stuck to their teeth.

I've tried every combination of search terms I can find and haven't had any luck so far!

Can you remember which war?

You could try
https://www.librarything.com/list/400/all/Childrens-Books-about-World-War-II-193...

or
https://www.librarything.com/list/390/all/Childrens-Books-about-World-War-I-1914...

I can't remember which war
Thank you for the links, I've been through both of those lists and at least I can count those titles out :(

I think the girl's father was away and returns towards the very end of the book - wracking my brain trying to remember any other detail!