Newbery Honor winner Audrey Couloumbis (“Getting Near to Baby”) and her husband, Akila, deliver this gripping novel based on Akila’s boyhood experiences during World War II, after the Germans invaded Greece. What were once just boys’ games soon become matters of life and death for 12-year-old Petros and his older brother, Zola.
This is a unique work. It is one of the first books written for young readers describing the early days of the event that has since come to be known as the Holocaust. Originally written in Yiddish in 1938, it isone of the most accomplished works of children’s literature in this language. It is also the only book for young readers by Glatshteyn, a major American Yiddish poet, novelist, and essayist. Written in the form of a suspense novel, Emil and Karl draws readers into the dilemmas faced by two young boys-one Jewish, the other not-when they suddenly find themselves without families or homes in Vienna on the eve of World War II. Because the book was written before World War II, and before the full revelations of the Third Reich’s persecution of Jews and other civilians, it offers a fascinating look at life during this period and the moral challenges people faced under Nazism. It is also a taut, gripping, page-turner of the first order.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
A stunning novel of the Holocaust from a Newbery MedalistHe’s a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Filthy son of Abraham.He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself, and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels.He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi, with tall, shiny jackboots of his own-until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind.And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he’s a boy who realizes it’s safest of all to be nobody.Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable-Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II-and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young Holocaust orphan.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be courageous and resourceful as she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis. Reprint. Newbery Medal Winner. AB. SLJ. K. H.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
Retells the story of King Christian X and the Danish resistance to the Nazis during World War II.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
Fighting on a secret front of World War II Paul and Marieas bucolic French country town is almost untouched by the ravages of WWII, but the siblings still live in the shadow of war. Their father is a Prisoner of War, kept hostage by the Germans. When their friend Henrias parents disappear and Henri goes into hiding because of his Jewish ancestry, Paul and Marie realize they must take a stand. But how can they convince the French Resistance that even children can help in their fight against injustice? Resistance is the first voulme of a triology written by acclaimed teen author Carla Jablonski and illustrated by Leland Purvis.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
When Holland was under Nazi rule, the Dutch lived extremely harsh lives. Thousands were in hiding, especially Jews who had managed to escape transport to the death camps. Frans Braal and his wife Mies took in anyone in need of help — Jews, children whose parents could no longer look after them, resistance fighters, and people who were starving — providing them with a temporary home. Twice their place was searched by the Nazis, and on both occasions they managed to hide everyone in time. Told through the eyes of a child, this is the story of the Braals, two people who willingly put themselves in great danger in order to save the lives of those less fortunate. Throughout, sidebars provide further information about Dutch resistance workers and traitors, Dutch Jews, bombing missions, false identity cards, the war, and more.
Daniel has escaped Nazi Germany with nothing but a desperate dream that he might one day find his parents again. But that golden land called New York has turned away his ship full of refugees, and Daniel finds himself in Cuba. As the tropical island begins to work its magic on him, the young refugee befriends a local girl with some painful secrets of her own. Yet even in Cuba, the Nazi darkness is never far away . . .
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
The successful play is now a gripping novel. Knocked unconscious after explosions ring out during a field trip to an Anne Frank exhibit, boy-crazy Nicole Burns wakes to find herself living a parallel life as a Jew in 1942 Paris. This Nicole is dating the boy of her present-day dreams, but living under the Nazis gradually becomes a nightmare. Her family survives the Nazi occupation with the help of friends, but when her father is exposed as a resistant, their fate takes a dire turn. The shifts in Nicole’s lives — from a carefree, sophisticated Parisian girl to a wretch riding in a cattle car with Anne Frank; from a modern girl focused only on the drama of her high school life to a thoughtful observer of the potential of everyday injustices — will engage teens and change their views of history found in books and the history we’re making today.