The night war” Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Rated 5 stars ARC. Dial Books for Young Readers (Penguin Random House). To be published April 9, 2024. 281 p. (Includes “Author’s note.”)

Miriam and her parents lived in Germany until forced to flee to Paris after Kristallnacht when she was eight years old. After living in cramped quarters for four years, food supplies were dwindling, and her father was forced to go into hiding. Soon afterwards she was separated from her mother when the French police rounded up everyone and sent them to the Velodrome d’Hiver for deportation. During the confusion Miriam’s neighbor urged her to save her two-year-old daughter Nora and flee to Switzerland. Unsure of what to do, Miriam took Nora and tried to mingle with the onlookers. After being spotted by a German soldier, they were rescued by a young nun.

In time, Miriam was sent to a convent school and separated from Nora. To survive she needed to forget her Jewishness, but her failure to protect Nora and escape to Switzerland haunted her waking moments. After Sister Dominique took her to visit the nearby castle of Chenonceau, things changed when she became involved in the Resistance and met the ghost of Catherine de Medici.

With the addition of a ghost, young readers learn about France’s history as well as its role in World War II.

Recommended for ages 11-14.

“Uprising” Jennifer A. Nielsen

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. Scholastic Press (Scholastic). 356 p. (Includes period photographs, and “Author’s note.”) To be published March 5, 2024.

Lidia Janina Durr Zakrzewski was born in Poland and, when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 to start World War II, she was 15 years old. She had always been a strong-willed child, her father’s favorite, and the bane of her mother’s existence. When he left home to fight for Poland, she was devastated. Within a short time the Nazis took away their house, her beloved piano, and the money her father had left them to survive. Lidia, her older brother, and her mother struggled to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their heads.

After Poland fell, the mistreatment of Jews became something Lidia saw on a regular basis. Forced to move to a squalid neighborhood, the bedroom window of their apartment overlooked the Warsaw Ghetto. There, she noticed Jews starving and being sent to concentration camps. Lidia did her best to sneak food into the Ghetto, knowing that being caught would mean instant death.

Lidia’s anger against the occupation of her country stoked a fire in her to join the Polish resistance. Her brother was a member but, despite his objections, she joined. She survived harrowing near-death experiences, multiple injuries, battles, and more in her determination to free Poland. “Uprising” is her story.

Lidia might be an unknown name to many but, after reading Nielsen’s carefully researched book and viewing the period photographs, she will not stay unknown. Lidia’s story deserves to be told, as her bravery saved the lives of hundreds of innocent people.

Highly recommended for ages 15 and older.

“Miss Morgan’s book brigade” Janet Skeslien Charles

Rated 3 stars *** ARC. ebook. Atria Books (Simon & Schuster). (Includes “Author’s Note.”) To be published April 30, 2024.

In 1917 Anne Morgan, daughter of millionaire financier J.P. Morgan, created an organization called “The Committee for Devastated France” (CARD). At that time most of France’s countryside laid in ruins during World War I, as German soldiers had devastated it. Though fighting was close by, Anne used the CARD organization and hundreds of volunteers to rebuild, offer employment, reopen schools, and open children’s libraries to give respite from their sorrow.

Anne recruited Jessie Carson from the New York Public Library to set up a lending library for children and adults. Jessie’s ideas of story time, open library shelves, children’s furniture, book mobiles, and a traveling library were considered radical, but she was persistent. “Miss Morgan’s book brigade” is her story.

Though I enjoyed learning how Jessie affected change in France’s libraries during World War One, I felt the voice of the modern NYPL researcher in a back-and-forth, past-to-the-present narrative was unnecessary. Jessie could easily carry the storyline without adding in the researcher’s romance and writing tribulations. I also found the numerous book phrases created from “the library of the mind” to be distracting.

Learning how Jessie created children’s libraries in a country that hadn’t had them before is a good reason to read the book, while the author’s expansive notes at the end give more information about the CARDs.

Recommended for Adults.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“Max in the house of spies: A tale of World War II” Adam Gidwitz

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. Dutton Children’s Books (Penguin Random House). 298 p. (Includes “How much of this story is real?” and “Annotated Bibliography.”) To be published February 27, 2024.

Eleven-year-old Max was a genius, upset with how the Nazis changed his life. On Kristallnacht they beat his father, took him to Sachsenhausen for three days, and closed his watchmaking business. His parents frantically searched for a way out of the country, but no one wanted Jews. When the opportunity arose for children to be evacuated to England, they sent Max. On the ferry ride there two tiny men appeared on his shoulders. Berg, a kobold, and Stein, a dybbuk, wanted to escape Germany and planned to pester him for a few hundred years. No one could hear or see them except Max, so he was sure they were an illusion. They weren’t.

In England Max lived for more than a year with the wealthy Montagu family. When he found out Uncle Ewen Montagu was a spy with the British Naval Intelligence he wanted to be recruited so he could go to Berlin and find his parents. Shortly afterwards he impressed Admiral Godfrey with his skills and was thrilled to be trained as a spy. Max is sure being reunited with his parents will be easy, but doesn’t realize spy work is more dangerous than he thinks.

Readers will learn much about World War II in England, as Max’s story is interspersed with information about The Blitz and individuals who were real-life spies. Berg and Stein usually disagree with almost all of Max’s decisions, so their competing interests, comments, and actions will keep readers in stitches.

I enjoyed the humor, and learned that Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series, was in the British Naval Intelligence. However, as those of you who follow my blog know, I don’t like reading books in a series unless I have all of them in front of me. Though I was not happy with the open ending I am now vested in Max, Berg, and Stein (which sounds like a great law firm). I must know what happens next.

Adam Gidwitz please let me know when you plan on releasing the ARC for book #2 because I NEED to read it right now. You’ve hooked me and will hook your young readers too.

Highly recommended for ages 12 and older.

“Artifice” Sharon Cameron

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. Scholastic Press (Scholastic). 381 p. (Includes “Author’s note.”) To be published November 7, 2023.

The Nazi invasion ended the life Isa’s parents and artist friends enjoyed at their art gallery in Amsterdam. After her mother died her father lost his ability to think rationally, so she had to make sure they had food and a place to live. She needed money to pay taxes on the gallery, so headed to an auction house with her father’s imitation Rembrandt. Unfortunately Michel, a Nazi soldier, knew the painting she sold to Hitler’s agent was fake. He threatened to turn her in if she didn’t help him escape to Switzerland.

Truus worked for the Resistance and needed money to smuggle Jewish babies out of the city. Isa gave her the money she’d gotten for the Rembrandt, and decided Nazis should pay for their escape. She needed to figure out how to turn her father’s paintings of the masters into credible forgeries, and knew painter Hans van Meegeren would be her unsuspecting teacher because Michel told her he sold Hermann Goering’s agent a Vermeer. She knew it was forged because she had the real one hidden in her gallery. Isa didn’t know the Nazis were looking for a woman with red hair who worked for the Resistance and caused many Nazi deaths. She has red hair.

“Artifice” weaves Isa’s story between scenes from the lives of real-life characters like Hans van Meegeren, as well as Johan van Hulst and Henriette Pimentel who saved over 600 Jewish babies from being killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Readers also learn about Hannie Schaft, the red-haired woman who gave the Nazis angst, as well as many other brave Dutchmen and women. Details about them are in the Author’s Note.

Highly recommended for Adults.

“Courage to dream: Tales of hope in the Holocaust” Neal Shusterman; ill. by Andrés Vera Martínez

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. Graphix (Scholastic). 245 p. (Includes “Author and Illustrator notes”, “Bibliography”, and “A note about the Hebrew letters in this book.”) To be published October 31, 2023.

Legends from European storytelling (such as Baba Yaga and the Golum) are intertwined with narratives from the Holocaust to educate readers on what happened during this terrible time in history, as well as with thoughts of what could have happened if magic existed to lend hope to those burdened by hate. Andrés Vera Martínez’s rich illustrations lend historical authenticity to Shusterman’s words, bringing each tale to life.

Facts, figures, and photographs from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as from Israel’s Yad Vashem, are interspersed to remind readers that parts of the stories contain magical elements but are based on real events that happened to real people. Questions such as “What would the Holocaust have been like if happened today and not during World War II?” or “How many more Jewish people would have been killed if ordinary people didn’t step up and protect them from harm?” will keep readers thinking long after they’ve turned the final page.

Think of today’s Holocaust deniers, and don’t stay silent in the face of hate. Remember what the citizens of Denmark did to save their Jewish citizens from death camps. Be courageous.

Highly recommended for ages 16 and older.

“A castle in Brooklyn” Shirley Russak Wachtel

Rated 3 stars *** ebook. Little A. 2023.

During World War II, Zalman and Jacob hid together managing to survive a mass murder in Poland. Their dependence on one another cemented their friendship, making them as close as brothers. After the war they immigrated to the United States, with Jacob settling in Brooklyn and Zalman on a Minnesota farm.

While he hid from soldiers Jacob dreamed of owning a home in Brooklyn. He knew exactly how it would look, and that it would be the future home of his wife and children. When he married Esther, his joy had to be shared with Zalman, who used architectural skills he’d learned from his father to help build the castle of Jacob’s dreams. There the three lived, sharing in the happiness that comes from true friendship, until a tsunami of events challenged all they held dear.

Happiness, loss, sorrow, betrayal, and heartbreak are some of what readers will feel, replaced with confusion from the voices of several characters introduced towards the end who appear out of the blue. Though it was eventually revealed they had something to do with our main characters it was jarring to have their voices mixed in with the stories of those we’d grown to know so well.

Recommended for Adults.

“Crossroads of granite” Michael Reit

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Michael Reit. Orphans of war #3. (Includes “Author’s notes”). To be published September 1, 2023.

In this third and final installment of the Orphans of war series, alternate chapters describe life for Christiaan, Lisa and Nora after we left them in “They bled orange.”

Once Christiaan returned to the Netherlands to restart the Resistance he was captured. Since he refused to reveal he was a spy he was taken to Mauthausen, a camp where prisoners were worked to death, murdered, and tortured. There he meets Floris, now an SS guard. Floris believes Christiaan is the ticket he needs to return to his former life of power and will make sure Christiaan reveals the secrets he didn’t reveal when he was first captured.

As Christiaan struggles to survive the mental, physical, and emotional stresses of Mauthausen he believes Lisa and Nora are safe. He doesn’t know Lisa is headed to the front lines with General Patton’s army, nor that Nora was captured when she returned to the Netherlands. With both Christiaan and Nora in concentration camps, and Lisa on the front lines, life becomes even more dangerous for them as the noose begins to close around the German army.

I read the book in one sitting, as the action had me eagerly turning pages to find out what would happen next to Lisa, Christiaan, and Nora. The Author’s notes explain how the events in Mauthausen were based on true accounts from prisoners and from the story of David Hersch, a Hungarian Jew imprisoned there who escaped two death marches.

Recommended for Adults.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“That summer in Berlin” Lecia Cornwall

Rated 5 stars ***** ebook. Berkley (Penguin Random House). 2022.

It was 1935 and Viviane Alden missed her father terribly. During a World War I battle he inhaled poisonous gas and was never the same. They always had a close bond but, after he died, her life was uprooted. Her mother had hated being poor and remarried for money. She was now the rich stepmother of four stepsisters, but Viviane was the only one not interested in marriage. She enjoyed being her own person, and photographing anything that caught her interest. After she broke off her engagement, she and her stepsister were sent to visit a family friend in Germany, in the hopes she would find a husband.

At that time Germany was immersed in preparations for the 1936 Olympics. Viviane had been recruited to act as a tourist and photograph anything to help Britain’s war effort. As she wandered Germany, photographing its secrets to pass on to an undercover reporter, she doesn’t know her cover has been blown wide open. It’s only a matter of time before she will disappear like many others before her unless she can find a way out.

Cornwall’s descriptions of the populace’s fixated devotion to Hitler were chillingly realistic and reminded me of current politics. I was riveted and couldn’t stop turning pages to find out what would happen next to Viviane. You won’t be disappointed.

Highly recommended for adults.

“The last lifeboat” Hazel Gaynor

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Berkley (Penguin Random House). To be published June 13, 2023.(Includes “Historical note,” “Discussion questions,” and “Book recommendations”)

Alice King lived a boring life with her mother. In a desperate desire to do something different, she signed up to be a CORB (Children’s Overseas Reception Board) escort. During World War II CORB worked to evacuate Great Britain’s children to other countries for their safety, and Alice was assigned to monitor a group of 90 CORB children on a ship sailing from Liverpool to Canada. A few days after sailing it was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat in the middle of the night. Alice, 6 children and 30 passengers made it on to the last lifeboat to leave the ship.

This is a story of tragedy and bravery. It is Alice’s story about the children in her care and the passengers hopelessly drifting on the open seas for eight days. It is also the story of Lily Nicholls, a mother desperately seeking her missing children after the sinking. I cried many times, but the courageous acts from the children and others brought smiles.

“The last lifeboat” is based on events that happened on September 17, 1940. The SS Sea of Benares was on its way from Liverpool to Canada when it was torpedoed. Out of the 406 people on board, 148 passengers and 13 CORB children survived. Eighty-one children died that night, which included four non-CORB children. This is their story, and I honor their memory with this review. Thank you, Ms. Gaynor, for reminding the world of this tragedy that occurred almost 83 years ago.

Highly recommended for Adults.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.