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.

“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.

“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.

“The wind knows my name” Isabel Allende

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Ballantine Books (Random House). To be published June 6, 2023.

In 2019 a police officer in El Salvador shot Marisol, who fled with her seven-year-old, blind daughter Anita knowing he would kill her if she stayed. After a difficult trip to the United States, she and Anita were forcibly separated at the border, and she was deported. Selena, a Latina social worker, took a personal interest in Anita. Though she had been trying for years to reunite separated children it had proven difficult because the U.S. didn’t keep good records of where children were sent. She was determined to find Anita’s mother.

In 1938 six-year-old Samuel was a violin prodigy in Vienna, but everything changed on Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass. That night his father was beaten and sent to a concentration camp, and his mother put him on a kindertransport to England thinking it would be a short separation. A few years later Samuel found out his parents, grandmother and aunt had all been murdered in the concentration camps. As the years passed music was the only thing that kept him going. The day he met Anita, everything changed.

Anita, Samuel, Selena, and others tell their interwoven stories which recount how separation from their parents affects children, but also splices in the poverty and murders migrants are forced to flee on their desperate journeys to the United States. “The wind knows my name” educates, saddens, but also gives hope.

Highly recommended for Adults.

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

“The call of the Wrens” Jennie L. Walsh

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Harper Muse (HarperCollins). (Includes “Author’s Note” and “Discussion questions.”) Published November 15, 2022.

The Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) was formed during World War I as part of Great Britain’s Royal Navy so women could fill jobs men couldn’t do because they had to fight. Known as Wrens, the women served heroically in many roles within the organization. After the war it was disbanded but restarted when World War II began. This is the story of the brave women who served their country during both wars.

Marion had lived in orphanages ever since she was born. It was the only life she knew, so she was terrified when she aged out in 1917. Since the nuns had showed her how to type she signed up with the Wrens, but wound up training carrier pigeons and delivering their messages. She was thrilled to serve as a motorcycle dispatch rider alongside Eddie, her best friend. He refused to stay behind in the orphanage and enlisted so they could serve together.

Evelyn was the only child of wealthy parents and resented her mother’s insistence that she attend finishing school, marry, and have children. Evelyn wanted to race cars because she loved the thrill of flying around the track, and a staid life was not in her future. When World War II began and she learned about the WRNS, she defied her mother and signed up to be a motorcycle dispatch rider. As a Wren she could live the adventurous life she craved, without fear of being boxed in by her mother’s demands.

In alternating voices Marion and Evelyn tell their stories of life as a Wren during two different wars. Their stories are filled with longing, hope, fear, love, tragedy, resourcefulness and strength. While both working for the WRNS during World War II, secrets are revealed that will change both of their lives forever.

I loved this book, and learning about the WRNS. I had read books about American women who worked during World War I and World War II, but had never read about Great Britain’s female contributions during these wars. “The call of the Wrens” is an enlightening look into their lives.

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

“The girl from Guernica” Karen Robards

Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Published September 7, 2022. HarperCollins.

Though only 16 years old, Sibi was a worrier. Her mother had come to Guernica months ago with Sibi and her three little sisters to take care of her own mother but, after her death, was working and spending time with friends and family. With the Civil War raging, Sibi wanted to return home to their father in Germany because she worried about rebels. Her mother insisted they were safe.

It wasn’t long before Nazis bombed the entire town and strafed civilians, killing her mom and sister. Colonel Griff and his men, members of the U.S. Army Air Corps assigned to the embassy in Spain, rescued severely injured Sibi and two of her sisters. When she returned to Germany, Sibi was forced to proclaim the official Nazi lie that Guernica was destroyed by Nationalists and Germany was innocent.

Later she met Griff again and found out he was a spy. Eager to get her revenge on the Nazis for what they had done to her family, Sibi began to slip him coded messages about things she overheard her father’s scientist friends discuss. As the years passed and the war raged on, Sibi’s activities began to get more dangerous. When she slipped him information about rockets Nazis were building under her father’s leadership, the resulting fallout would cause her to depend on him for her life once again.

I didn’t know about the attack on Guernica, and the painting by Picasso that generated world outrage. The 8 years between when the town was attacked and the war’s end in 1945 is told from Sibi’s point of view, and will give readers a taste of what it might have been like to be a female spy for the Allies in wartime Germany. Sibi’s story will keep readers glued to the pages.

Highly recommended for Adults.

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