Now available – the Carnegie Medal winner comes to the U.S.
When her grandfather dies, Tamar inherits a box containing a series of clues and coded messages. Out of the past, another Tamar emerges, a man involved in the terrifying world of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Holland half a century before. His story is one of passionate love, jealousy, and tragedy set against the daily fear and casual horror of the Second World War — and unraveling it is about to transform Tamar’s life forever.
From acclaimed British sensation Mal Peet comes a masterful story of adventure, love, secrets, and betrayal in time of war, both past and present.
Featured in Volume II, Issue 1 of WOW Review.
Related: England (UK), Europe, Germany, Historical Fiction, Netherlands, Young Adult (ages 14-18)
- ISBN: 0763634883
- Author: Peet, Mal
- Published: 2007 , Candlewick
- Themes: Family, resistance movement, World War II
- Descriptors: England (UK), Europe, Germany, Historical Fiction, Netherlands, Young Adult (ages 14-18)
- No. of pages: 432
I enjoyed listening to the audio version of Tamar. The narrator makes the story come alive.
With this month’s theme addressing how change is inevitable, this week’s book addresses how circumstances have a way of creating changes that can transport us not only physically, as in A Faraway Island, but mentally. Reading Tamar, I was transported from my own life to a young girl’s inquiry of identity to an edge-of-my-seat account of the Underground during World War II. This novel kept me anticipating the next page and the next chapter until the very end of the book, and even now I still find myself going back. This novel is THAT good, that engaging, that well-written.
Fifteen year old Tamar wants to know why her grandfather gave her the name she has, and her question becomes especially important to her once he commits suicide. This change in her life leaves her wondering who she is, who her grandfather really was, and what her name really means. Told as parallel stories flipping between the Netherlands in 1945 to England in 1995, this novel creates a grand narrative that addresses themes of courage, honor, friendship, and sacrifice that will leave a reader with a deep sense of satisfaction tinged with lingering sadness. There are so few times when I am finished with a read that I think, yes, this is what had to be. It happened with Tamar, and I can see why this novel won a Carnegie Medal. This novel will stay with you. It is an amazing historical journey that older adolescents will love. It combines historical intrigue with passionate emotions that has the potential for opening up a part of World War II history we seldom get to visit in schools. Yes, change is inevitable, and Tamar shows how knowledge can produce change within us and what we thought we knew about ourselves, our family members, our family histories.