Miraculously, Junko Morimoto survived the Hiroshima bomb in 1945, but was eye-witness to the incredible suffering of others, including the fate of her school friends.
World War II
My Secret Camera: Life In The Lodz Ghetto
Photographs taken secretly by a young Jewish boy document the fear, hardship, generosity, and humanity woven through the daily lives of the Jews forced to live in the Lodz ghetto during the Holocaust.
Smoke And Ashes
An account of the tragic fate of the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust is set against a chronicle of the roots of Nazi anti-Semitism, Hitler’s rise to power, World War II, and the Nazi program of extermination. Simultaneous.
Leaving China
James McMullan was born in Tsingtao, North China, in 1934, the grandson of missionaries who settled there. As a little boy, Jim took for granted a privileged life of household servants, rickshaw rides, and picnics on the shore—until World War II erupted and life changed drastically. Jim’s father, a British citizen fluent in several Chinese dialects, joined the Allied forces. For the next several years, Jim and his mother moved from one place to another—Shanghai, San Francisco, Vancouver, Darjeeling—first escaping Japanese occupation then trying to find security, with no clear destination except the unpredictable end of the war. For Jim, those ever-changing years took on the quality of a dream, sometimes a nightmare, a feeling that persists in the stunning full-page, full-color paintings that along with their accompanying text tell the story of Leaving China.
Auschwitz: The Story Of A Nazi Death Camp
Startling first-person narratives, rare photographs, and a well-researched history describe what happened at Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland used during World War II by the Nazis to gather and murder many people, mostly Jews.
Gifts From The Enemy
Gifts from the Enemy is the powerful and moving story based on From a Name to a Number: A Holocaust Survivor’s Autobiography by Alter Wiener, in which Alter recalls his loss of family at the hands of the Nazis and his internment in five prison camps during World War II. This picture book tells one moving episode during Alter’s imprisonment, when an unexpected person demonstrates moral courage in repeated acts of kindness to young Alter during his imprisonment.
The Pact
Peter Gruber is a ten year old German boy who, in May of 1939, is dealing with the drowning death of his closest friend, living with his mother in Hamburg.
The Pact is a WOW Recommends: Book of the Month for September 2016.
Winter’s Bullet
In January 1945, fifteen-year-old Tygo Winter, a locksmith’s son who has been forced by the Nazis to loot abandoned Dutch homes, finds himself protecting a Jewish girl he has found in a villa, and in possession of information about a German super-weapon that the Nazi high command plans to use to defeat the Allied forces in the Battle of the Bulge–information that the Resistance wants.
The Navajo Code Talkers
Amidst a complicated history of mistreatment by and distrust of the American government, the Navajo people–especially bilingual code talkers–helped the Allies win World War II.
The School The Aztec Eagles Built
In May 1942, German U-boats torpedoed two unarmed Mexican oil tankers off the Gulf Coast, forcing Mexico to enter World War II. With the help of United States President Roosevelt, Mexican President Camacho arranged to send one Air Force squadron to fight in the war. Thirty-eight of Mexico’s top pilots, and about two hundred sixty additional military crew were carefully selected to form the 201st Air Force Squadron, also known as the Aztec Eagles.