The Boys Who Challenged Hitler

At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation’s leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys tracked down and arrested.

Unlikely Warrior: A Jewish Soldier in Hitler’s Army

As a young adult in wartime Vienna, Georg Rauch helped his mother hide dozens of Jews from the Gestapo behind false walls in their top-floor apartment and arrange for their safe transport out of the country. His family was among the few who worked underground to resist Nazi rule. Then came the day he was drafted into Hitler’s army and shipped out to fight on the Eastern front as part of the German infantry—in spite of his having confessed his own Jewish ancestry.

War Games

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.

Brave Deeds: How One Family Saved Many People from the Nazis

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.

Sky: A True Story of Resistance During World War II

A former member of the underground Dutch resistance force against the Nazis recounts her two years of covert meetings, perilous deliveries, near-confrontations, and life sentencing while she was still a teenager.

The Klipfish Code

The year is 1942, and Norway is under Nazi occupation. Ten-year-old Merit is sent with her younger brother to Godoy Island to live with her aunt and grandfather after Germans Bomb Norway in 1940. Merit longs to join her parents in the Resistance and when her aunt, a teacher, is taken away two years later, she resents even more the Nazis’ presence and her grandfather’s refusal to oppose them.