Europe

Materials from Europe

Pies and Prejudice

Four girls, and their mothers, continue their mother-daughter book club via videoconference between Massachusetts and England, reading Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” and try to put friendship before romance.

The Rebels’ Assault

Decimus Rex has escaped Arena Primus in the company of a fellow slave, Olu Umbika. Together, they manage to board a slave ship and sail away from the trials and Slavious Doom. But now their four friends are being used as bait to get them to return. Decimus and Olu must reach the Suvius Tower to rescue their friends before they get captured themselves!

Grandma Susan Remembers

A grandmother from an old Maine family that came to America from England generations ago relates family and cultural life to her grandchildren as they enjoy various traditions of the New England seacoast.

A Faraway Island

Torn from their homeland, two Jewish sisters find refuge in Sweden. It’s the summer of 1939. Two Jewish sisters from Vienna12-year-old Stephie Steiner and 8-year-old Nellieare sent to Sweden to escape the Nazis. They expect to stay there six months, until their parents can flee to Amsterdam; then all four will go to America. But as the world war intensifies, the girls remain, each with her own host family, on a rugged island off the western coast of Sweden. Nellie quickly settles in to her new surroundings. She’s happy with her foster family and soon favors the Swedish language over her native German. Not so for Stephie, who finds it hard to adapt; she feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who’s as cold and unforgiving as the island itself. Her main worry, though, is her parentsand whether she will ever see them again. From the Hardcover edition.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2

Black Radishes

It is March of 1940. The French believe that their army can protect them from Nazi Germany. But is Paris a safe place for Jews? Gustavers”s parents donrs”t think so. Forced to leave behind his best friend, the mischievous Marcel, and his cousin Jean-Paul, Gustave moves with his mother and father to Saint-Georges, a small village in the countryside. During April and May, Nazi Germany invades one country after another. In June, the French army is defeated, and Paris is occupied. Saint-Georges is still part of the free zone, but the situation there is becoming increasingly precarious. Then Gustave meets Nicole, a Catholic girl who works for the French Resistance. Along with her father, Nicole tries to find a way to smuggle Jean-Paul, Marcel, and their families into Free France so that they can all escape to America. It is Gustave, however, who comes up with a plan that just might work. But going into Occupied France is a risky thing to do when you are Jewish. Inspired by her fatherrs”s experiences as a Jewish child living in France during World War II, Susan Lynn Meyer tells the story of a familyrs”s day-to-day struggles in a country that may not be able to keep its promise of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 1

Walking to School

When the path to eight-year-old Allison’s Catholic school goes through hostile Protestant territory in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Allison finds she is not alone in her loathing of the situation.

This book has been included in WOW’s Kids Taking Action Booklist. For our current list, visit our Boolist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.

Not My Fault

Written from the perspective of the schoolyard, this simply illustrated tale stimulates thought on issues of responsibility. When the classmates of a young boy who has been bullied all deny blame for the incident, they offer many common excuses why they declined to step in on their peer’s behalf. The familiar, first-person narration of the young characters begs the question, Does it really have nothing to do with me? The story closes with a series of powerful images of global strife, making the connection between simply not stepping in to help someone and standing by while wider atrocities go on.

Featured in Volume II, Issue 2 of WOW Review.