The Children's War

The Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Michael Foreman

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:50:00 +0000

When 9 year old Karl is forced to go to work on weekends at a Canadian nursing home with his mother, a nurse, he finds himself drawn to an elderly patient name Lizzie. And the attraction is mutual. Karl is the only person there who believes Lizzie when she says that she once had an elephant in her garden. Slowly, Lizzie tell her story to Karl and his mother.

Lizzie had lived with her mother, a zookeeper, and her young brother Karli in Dresden, Germany during World War II. Though very much against Hitler, their dad is off fighting on the Russian front. But when the Allies begin to bomb Germany, it is decided that the animals in the zoo would need to be put down if things got really dire. Rather than see that happen, Lizzie's mother decides to bring a still young elephant home from the zoo and to care for her in the garden. The elephant is named Marlene, after the famous German singer Marlene Dietrich, now living and working in America. But in 1945, RAF planes literally firebomb Dresden, destroying most of the city center and causing residents to flee the city westward to avoid the Russian soldiers approaching from the east. Among those refugees are Lizzie, Karli, their mother and Marlene.

It is mid-winter when the refugees head out with their pachyderm, hoping to find safety at the rural farm of some relatives who haven't spoken to Lizzie's family since the war began because they were Hitler supporters. But when they arrive, the farm is almost completely deserted - in the barn they discover a wounded Canadian airman named Peter hiding out. At first, their mother treats him terribly, but after he saves Karli's life, that changes. And when the police show up at the farm looking for Peter, the family decides it is time to move on, west towards the Allies, with Peter, and of course, Marlene, who now carries 16 year old Lizzie's secret - she is madly in love with Peter.

As they head west again, the family has many more adventures and many more interesting encounters, but will they make it to safety with their elephant and their enemy soldier?

An Elephant in the Garden is based on a real story that Morpurgo and his wife heard on the BBC at 3 in the morning about a woman zookeeper in Belfast who took an elephant home each night with her When the Germans started bombing Ireland. Naturally, Morpurgo gave the story his own special twist. The result in an interesting narrative, though perhaps no one of his best.

Almost from the start, my interest flagged each time I picked up the book. It was too slow moving and too full of explanation and short on action. It did get better in the middle, after Peter was discovered and the family went on the run again, but I am afraid most young readers might have given up on the book by them.

I also found the idea that a modern listener is named Karl just like the Karli of the past, and that he resembles him in so many other ways, to be one of those coincidental conceits that Morpurgo so often uses and that I don't much care for. It's a little to pat for my taste.

I did, however, like the metaphor of the compass - the one Peter carries as an airman and how it becomes a red thread through the story as a guide for finding one's way both physically and morally.

As always in a Morpurgo story, An Elephant in the Garden is told in simple, well-crafted prose. The past and present settings are differentiated using different fonts to avoid any confusion. And because it is by Michael Morpurgo, you know the end will be OK ever for the most sensitive reader, making it a good introductory narrative for kids who are just beginning to learn about war and its consequences. And he does make Marlene sound like such a gentle, patient pachyderm, it almost makes you want to get an elephant of your own. ALMOST being the operative word in that sentence.

Morpurgo has teamed up once again with Michael Foreman, one of my favorite children's book authors/illustrators, and the accompanying black and white ink and wash illustrations he has created for An Elephant in the Garden just complete the story perfectly.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was purchased for my personal library

Scholastic/UK has a short but lovely 2 page PFD guide for An Elephant in the Garden that can be downloaded HERE

And if you would like to read more about the real story that inspired Michael Morpurgo to write An Elephant in the Garden, you can find the story HERE

The Adventures of Superman: it's Man of Steel Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:16:00 +0000

Today is Man of Steel Day because supposedly if you visit your local comic book retailer you can get a free copy of the All Star Superman @1 Special Edition comic book and maybe if you are lucky, free Man of Steel posters and bags. It's all really just promo for the Man of Steel movie which opens on Friday.

This is a rather glamed up Superman and I know lots of people are looking forward to the new Man of Steel movie, including my own Kiddo. But I'm just an old fashioned girl who still likes the old Superman comics books and newspaper strips. Superman, as you probably know, was the brain child of Jerry Siegle and Joe Schuster in the 1930s. In June 1938, Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, and by 1939, the Man of Steel had his own comic book. Once World War II broke out, it didn't take Superman long to become a hero and a defender to "truth, justice and the American way" for kids (and grownups) who were already hooked on both the comic book and the 15 minute radio show that aired almost everyday.

Action #1 June 1938 and Superman #1 1939

Superman ran as a serial on radio from February 12, 1940, syndicated on NYC's WOR, and later, it was on the Mutual Network, where it was broadcast from August 31, 1942 to February 4, 1949. Called The Adventures of Superman, the 15 minute show usually ran late in the afternoon so kids could listen after school. And kids loved it.

Superman is 75 years old now and over 1000 episodes of his radio show, The Adventures of Superman, is now in the public domain, which means you, too, can listen to this downloadable bit of pop culture history either on ITunes or the Internet Archive and best of all, it's all free.

Here, for your listening pleasure, is the very first episode called, appropriately enough, The Baby from Krypton.

And well, OK, I will probably go see the new movie Man of Steel, too. Meanwhile,

Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:40:00 +0000

The events in Italy during WWII aren't often written about in kidlit. To date, I have only written about two books where the action takes place in Italy. The first was Stones in Water by Donna Jo Napoli, an MG story about an Italian boy rounded up in the cinema while watching an American cowboy movie and sent to work in a labor camp in Germany. The second was the excellent picture book I Will Come Back for You by Marisabina Russo, about how a young Jewish girl and her family were helped to survive in hiding in Italy despite the strict anti-Semitic laws.

Well, now, thanks to the prolific British children's author Shirley Hughes, another story set in Italy had been told. Hero on a Bicycle begins in 1944 in Florence. Paolo Crivelli, 13, lives with his British mother Rosemary, older sister Constanza, 16, his now very old beloved dog Guido and his bicycle. His Italian father is an outspoken anti-Fascist, forced into hiding so no one, not even his family, knows his whereabouts.

Now, with nothing to do since the schools are closed and his friends have all left Florence, Paolo sneaks out of the house every night and rides his bicycle around the city despite the curfew. Meanwhile, his mother lies in bed worrying about whether he will make it home.

One night, Paolo is stopped by some rough looking men with rifles. They have a message for his mother and want him to give it to her: they are in the area and will be getting in touch - tomorrow night if they can - the usual way. The next night Paolo follows his mother as she heads to her meeting with the strangers. As he watches, he realizes they are partisans and they want his mother to shelter two Allied airmen -a Brit and a Canadian - until they can get them to safety.

But there are rumors about Rosemary Crivelli and one Sunday, the Gestapo shows up and searches the house from top to bottom. Luckily, the Crivelli's had a warning this was going to happen and were able to hide the airmen. In fact, as the war in and around Florence heats up and the Allied forces get closer, the occupying German get more and more desperate and cruel. And Paolo, who had earlier tried to join the partisans but was embarrassingly rejected, finally gets his wish do something for them when it is decided that he will be their guide to a safe house in the center of Florence. But is a 13 year old boy up to the task of a grown man in order to save the lives of these two Allied airmen?

Hero on a Bicycle is a real coming of age novel, but I can't say it totally grabbed me. I just didn't connect with any of the characters. I actually found them to be flat. forced and quite frankly, unbelievable. What was believable, however, were the descriptions of Florence and its surroundings, and the deprivations that the ordinary citizens suffered - for example, the Crivelli's were always hungry like everyone in WWII, while the best food went to the occupiers and it is interesting to read how careful Paolo was about protecting his bicycle tires, since there were no replacements if they got ruined. Although, by 1944, I am surprised they were still OK given Paolo's heavy duty riding all the time.

And I am usually fond of books about partisans, but not this one. I found Hughes' portrayal of them to be just plain of mean at time, especially towards a family and child of a man who is probably a fellow resistance fighter, as the family suspects he is. And I thought they were a little to easy for Paolo to find, but not the Germans, which didn't make sense.

There are some pleasant surprises, though, and certainly some very heart-pounding moments, as when the German lieutenant, attracted to Constanza, finds a discarded Lucky Strike packet during his search of the house. Or when Paolo must help the airmen and everything goes wrong. This is a first novel for the 85 year old Hughes and I would still recommend Hero on a Bicycle in part because of its lovely Italian setting but with reservations as far as the plot goes.

A word about the illustrations at the head of every chapter: Hughes is an artist and she had done these illustrations herself. They are wonderful black and white pencil drawing, as you can see from this one of Paolo taking one of his nighttime excursions:

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

Be sure to check out the website dedicated to Hero on a Bicycle for more on this interesting novel, including some of the drawings she did during her post war trip to Italy and which she utilized for this novel.

This is book 7 of my 2013 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry.

D-Day

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 05:00:00 +0000

The 69th Anniversary of the D-Day landings and invasion on Normandy Beach in France, a operation that turned the tide of the entire war, has come and gone.

My apologies for this last D-Day post. I had a wonderful post planned for D-Day thanks to the generosity of a reader who sent me a wonderful poster that was distributed to newspapers across the county. The poster is of the five daily Peanuts comic stripes by Charles Schulz commemorating D-Day in 1994. I had the poster framed and promptly broke the glass, so it is back at the framer. So I am reposting the strips I used in 2011 again until I get my poster back:

Click to Enlarge and Read

You can also still follow the D-Day landings and invasion through the experience of 7 people who were there thanks to England's Channel 4, an experiment in real-time which should prove to be interesting. You can find it HERE

Lastly, a documentary has been produced by Rick Beyer and has been showing on various PBS stations around the country called The Ghost Army. This sounds like the stuff of YA WWII fiction, but it was the real deal. This was a unit of hand picked artists, designers, ever a fashion designer - you remember Bill Blass, don't you? These guys landed in France with rubber tanks and jeeps, sound effect records and all the other tricks they had dreamed up to fool the enemy. And they did - more than 20 times throughout France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

Check your local PBS stations to see if The Ghost Army is scheduled to be on TV. If not, hopefully PBS will run it again online or on TV, it is so well worth watchers to see how their deceptions were created and utilized, as you can see from this trailer:

You can also read an interesting article in The Atlantic about the Ghost Army HERE Those of you who read Connie Willis's brillant Blackout and All Clear, you might remember that she included bits about the rubber camaflogue tanks and trucks.

Please take a moment to remember those who landed in France on D-Day, those who survived and as well as those who didn't. Each person played their own important role in the success of that invasion.

Ausländer by Paul Dowswell

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 11:04:00 +0000

People of German descent, were considered to be Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans living outside of Germany) by the Nazis, who wanted to bring these 'misguided wanderers' heim ins Reich (home to the Reich).

And that is almost exactly what Piotr Bruck is - a blond hair, blue eyed 13 year old Volksdeutscher, living in Poland, not far from the Russian border. I say almost, because Piotr had a grandparent who was Polish, not German. Left orphaned in June 1941 when his parents car got in the way of the German invasion of Russia, Piotr was put in an orphanage when the Nazis took over his family's farm.

But Piotr's luck changed in August 1941 when he was picked out to be adopted by a prominent German family from Berlin, mostly because of his perfect Aryan looks. The Kaltenbach's already had three children - cold, distant Elsbeth, 20, Traudle, 13 and Charlotte, 8. Professor Kaltenbach accepted Piotr, now Germanized to Peter, immediately, but the rest of the family was not so welcoming. Nevertheless, Peter is enrolled in the Hitler Youth, and in school and even thinks about becoming a Luftwaffe pilot. But it doesn't take long for Peter to become disenchanted with his new life.

He begins to spend time in the library instead of home. At the library, Peter meets Anna Reiter there and soon the two begin to spend a lot of time together. At first, the Kaltenbachs are thrilled - Anna comes from a good Nazi family and has the right looks. But, as Peter discovers, all is not as it seems with Anna. She and Peter begin to listen to the forbidden BBC broadcasts. Then he discovers that the Reiters are part of the resistance. And before Peter knows it, he is also involved the resistance and helping Jews who are in hiding. And to make matter worse, Peter discovers that Professor Kaltenbach, head of the Institute of Racial Studies, is involved with experiments being conducted on Jews.

It doesn't take long for the Gestapo to become suspicious of Peter and Anna's activities and when they inform Ptofessor Kaltenbach his Polish grandparent, he realizes he must give Peter up. But Peter and Anna also realize they must get away. But escape from Nazi Germany isn't easy for anyone, especially when the Gestapo is after you. Can Peter, Anna and the Reiter's succeed in getting to neutral Switzerland?

Once I picked Ausländer up to read, I couldn't put it down. It is a compelling, exciting, well written look at one boy's experience of Nazi Germany. Though Peter's story is fiction, much of what he experiences is based on reality. And because he is a Volksdeutscher Peter's story gives the reader a unique perspective, that of an outsider looking in. After all, one of the translations of the word Ausländer is outsider. Peter never fit in while he lived in Poland because he was of German descent, but he never fit in while living in Berlin either since he was always considered Polish. Even though his German father was happy to see the Nazis arrival in Poland, Peter's half German mother didn't share her husband's enthusiasm. And Peter wasn't brought up being fed Nazi dogma from a young age as the Kaltenbach girls were. He had already begun to think for himself before going to Germany leaving him more open to seeing and assessing things from a different perspective. Ironically, this began when he was disappointed by the constant physical activity demanded of HJ boys leaving little time for school and studying.

Paul Dowswell knows his history and has produced a fascinating, informed novel that offers an appealing protagonist and story at the same time as exploring a little known National Socialist policy.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was purchased for my personal library

Thank You!

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:03:00 +0000

Thank You to everyone who answered my appeal and signed the petition to keep the Sandy Hook crime scene information private. At 2:00 AM, the Connecticut State Legislature voted 33-2 in the state Senate and 130-2 in the state House of Representatives to prevent the release of any victim photos, videos and some audiotapes. Some of the 911 calls will still be released, but hopefully there will be some discretion used.

An Appeal

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:48:00 +0000

This is Daniel Barden. He was the 7 year old son of my cousin Mark. Daniel was one of the 20 children killed on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Daniel was a sweet, kind, life-loving little boy. Our last very in-depth conversation, two weeks before the shooting, was about those two missing front teeth and what a kid can do if the tooth fairy might forget to drop by when a kid has just lost a tooth or two (I am experienced in this matter, thanks to my own Kiddo).

It has been 6 months since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And now the crime scene information, including graphic photographs of the victims, is due to be released. But I want to remember Daniel as he was before December 14, 2012. And so do the families of the other children and adults who lost their lives that terrible day.

A petition to the Governor of Connecticut has been started to not make the crime scene information available to the public by the families, including Mark and Jackie Barden, Daniel's parents. About 1,000 signatures are still needed and so I am appealing to the blogging community for support. The petition, Keep Sandy Hook crime scene information private: Urge the CT legislature to pass HB 6426, can be found at HERE

I hope you can find it in your hearts to sign this petition to support the Sandy Hook families. You do not have to have you name displayed when you sign. And this petition has nothing to do with gun control issues, nor with any political party or agenda.

I want to remember Daniel as the happy little boy he was in the photo I took last summer laughing with his brother James, sister Natalie, cousin L'naya and my Kiddo watching Happy Chinese around one tiny IPad.

Recap: What I did at BEA 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 15:11:00 +0000

It is early Sunday morning and another Book Expo America has come and gone, so naturally I went back to my Top Ten Tuesday post to see if I had actually accomplished the goals I had set out for myself.

Wednesday: The BEA Bloggers Conference:
I did have fun at the Book Blogger Conference, but can't say I learned anything new, which is most likely due to my having gained trial and error experience over time more than anything else.

At the Young Adult Editor Insight panel, YA editors talked about what they look for in the books they edit, which was pretty much the same characteristics bloggers look for in the books they review. Things like primary sources in nonfiction; in novels, characters who have flaws, but are aspirational despite the flaws; contradictory characters that can act a foils for each other; characters who act, who do something; day to day life of characters in YA and, finally, diversity in YA.

At the YA Book Blogging Pros: Successes, Struggles and Insider Secrets, the panel talked about how they started and what constituted success in blogging. Of course, they did all the things most bloggers do - participate in memes, and have different features on their blogs. These are all old, very successful blogs and I think hearing from a a newer blogging still finding their way in today's blogging world would have been a nice informative addition - sort of like experience helping inexperience.

I also went to Blogging Platforms, but that was mostly pushing Wordpress or buying your own domain. Also to remember that success in blogging isn't to be found in statistics, pageviews or the now nearly dysfunctional Google Friends Connect but in whether you make a difference. I didn't get much out of this one because according to my notes my Kiddo texted me that she was on her way to China, but former boyfriend, now fiancé couldn't fly with her because his Chinese visa didn't include Canada and they had a layover.

Book Blogging and the "Big" Niches was the last panel I went to. And basically their advice was to using your professional experience and always ask yourself the question Who is the book you are reviewing fit for? And to make sure your blog has a unique perspective.

The absolute best thing about today was that I was given a ticket to the Children's Book and Author Breakfast - but not just any old ticket, but one the Reserved Premium Roundtable tickets. So Thank You so much, Lisa Tener, I loved sitting there. And if anyone ever needs a Book Writing Coach, she is the lady to see.

Thursday:
The exhibit hall opened at 9:00, but somehow I managed to get there early enough to get tickets to two author signings - Walter Dean Myers signing Darius & Twig and Brandon Sanderson signing The Rithmatist. I could have gotten more but I had other priorities.

I got to speak to lots of publishers who have books coming out that I was interested in and so have lots of promises of galleys in my future. I was especially pleased to meet the representatives at Sleeping Bear Press, who are doing some wonder historical fiction for younger readers, for example Welcome to America, Champ! reviewed here.

I had to turn down an invitation from Scholastic which pained me no end to hear Suzanne Collins and Walter Dean Myers discuss Writing About War for Young People. Back in 2011, Suzanne Collins wrote an interesting article in the New York Time Sunday Magazine about the same topic, an article which I cut out and saved. But you can also read it HERE (if the link doesn't work the first time, try it again - it's a quirk with the NY Times)

Friday: a big day for me

Octavia Spencer, Mary Pope Osborne, Rick Riordan and Veronica Roth

The first big day event was The Children's Book and Author Breakfast. It was great, except everyone thought they would be getting galleys of Allegiant by Veronica Roth and instead we were given copies of Divergent. Apparently no one near me read her blog. I gave my away to a girl later on since I already have a copy. We also received a T-Shirt for Rick Riordan's new book The House of Hades (the cover of which was revealed during his talk), and a nice cup for the new 50th Magic Tree House book, Hurry Up Houdini by Mary Pope Osborne. Our Master of Ceremonies was Octavia Spencer, the actress and now novelist, who did a great job. We were give a copy of her book The Case of the Time -Capsule Bandit, which looks like a nice Middle Grade novel.

Elizabeth Wein (L) and Amy Tan (R)

The next big day was meeting Elizabeth Wein and getting a signed copy of her new book Rose Under Fire. What a nice lady! Everyone on line was a Code Name Verity fan, so that even standing on line was fun.

Third big day event was sitting and listening to Amy Tan talk about her life and her writing for an hour. She is one of my favorite authors and I enjoyed listening to her so much.

Day 3 was an early day for me because I had things to take care of so I ended up leaving early, with a bag full of books to read and write about, including these:

Books about WWII (click to enlarge)

Saturday:
I can't believe this, but I decided to stay home. There was nothing special I wanted to do and would have ended up with more books that I didn't have a real interest in, so I decided to sleep late and take it easy. Besides, I pretty much did everything on my Top Ten list.

So here ends my BEA adventure for 2013.

Top Ten Tuesday #13: Top Ten Things I Want to Do at Book Expo America

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Tue, 28 May 2013 14:24:00 +0000

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish

It's been a long time since I did a Top Ten list, but this week's topic is a freebie and so I thought I would do the top ten things I want to do at my third BEA:

1- Have fun and learn something new at the Book Blogger Conference

2- Meet Elizabeth Wein, who wrote one of my all time favorite WWII books Code Name Verity and who will be signing ARCs of her new book Rose Under Fire.

3- Attend at least one BEA Conference, preferably Jenny Brown's The Journey of a YA Book - from Writer to Reader with author Sarah Farizan.

4- Take the time to sit and enjoy some of the Uptown and Downtown Stages this year. I did that my first year and really enjoyed them, but didn't last year and was very sorry. They are interesting and informative, and a good place to sit and relax, away from all the hustle and bustle of the exhibit floor while listening to favorite authors.

5- Try and get to the Children's Book and Author Breakfast on time this year. I am so excited to see/hear Octavia Spencer, a favorite actress, talk about her book, as well as Veronica Roth (I really can't wait to read Allegiant, the third book in the Divergent series)

6- There's a Book Blogger Picnic in Central Park on Friday, May 31st from 6:00PM to 8:00PM on the lawns near the Heckscher Playground at the southwest corner for anyone who wants to go, you can find more information from the organizers: Alexa (Alexa Loves Books), Andrea (Overstuffed Bookcase), Jen (YA Romantics) and Katelyn (Kate's Tales of Books and Bands) or follow hashtag #BEABloggerPicnic

7- If I didn't live in NYC, I would be sure to do some sightseeing, or at least buy some cheap theater tickets at TKTS in the heart of Times Square. You probably won't find any for Matilda, but shows like Annie (Jane Lynch is in it now) or Pippin are good possibilities.

8- NYC is a culinary delight - I know eating can be expensive, but stay away from McDonald's and other chain restaurants. Joe Allen's at 326 West 46th Street is one of my favorite theater district restaurants (and I have sat near more than one famous person there). If you are feeling a little bit in the money, I would recommend Todd English's Food Hall at The Plaza Hotel. It is a food hall like no other. But, for ecomony, there is always Junior's on West 45th between Broadway and 8th Avenue (be sure to have their world famous cheesecake) or the Cafe Edison in the Hotel Edison at 228 West 47th Street (I'm partial to the pastrami) And do enjoy an NYC bagle (the difference really is in the water) and the many street food vendors or the food trucks that are everywhere.

9- As long as you are feeling bookish, take a walk over the the NYPL at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, sign of one the docent led tours of the library, then take a walk down library way East 41st Street between 5th and Madison Avenues) and look at the book quote plaques that are embedded in the cement. You can also see a slide show of the plaques at the New York Public Library

10- The thing I am really looking forward to, however, is seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

Memorial Day 2013: America's White Table by Margot Theis Raven, illlustrated by Mike Benny

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Sun, 26 May 2013 16:58:00 +0000

My brother is buried in Calverton National Cemetery in Suffolk County, NY. He was eligible to be buried there because he has fought honorably in one of this country's war (not WWII). He didn't die on the battlefield, but he did die because of what happened there. And tradition has it that every year, the scout troops from all over Suffolk County gather on Memorial Day weekend to decorate the graves of all the members of the Armed Forces who are buried there. Decorate? Well, Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day, a day to clean up the grave of a loved one and decorate it with flowers, plants and flags. Many people still do this. And that is just what the scouts do in Calverton and national cemeteries across the country. At each grave, they place an American flag to honor each and every soldier. It pleases me no end that they do this and it would have pleased my brother since he was such a traditionalist.

Scouts at Calverton National Cemetery (2012)

Another tradition in the Armed Forces is the setting of the White Table, sometimes called the Remembrance Table, in mess halls and homes all throughout the US. What is a White Table?

In her book, America's White Table, Margot Theis Raven explains what it is through the experience of three young sisters who are given the privilege of setting a small, solitary white table in their home in anticipation of their Uncle John's visit. As they set the table, their mother explains to them the symbolism of each item on it. And then she tells them the story of their Uncle John's service in Vietnam. He was held captive by the Viet Cong with three other men. When the chance to escape came along one day, one of the men, named Mike, was too sick to go and while two escaped, Uncle John stayed behind with Mike.

Later, however, another chance to escape came and this time Uncle John carried Mike on this back into the Vietnam jungles to away a rescue helicopter. Unfortunately, Mike died before it arrived.

And so, the White Table is set in honor of Mike, and of all the fallen, all the POWs, all MIAs.

America's White Table is a lovely book that never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It cover a very difficult subject with so much delicacy. The Author's Note at the end gives a history of the White Table tradition which began with the Vietnam War, but now extends to all wars. And although the focus is on Veteran's Day, when we honor those living members of the Armed Services, like Uncle John, it is also a highly recommended for Memorial Day, when we honor those who are no longer with us.

America's White Table is illustrated by Mike Benny. This is his first children's book, and he has certainly captured the spirit of this touching story. The soft, full color illustrations, though realistic, have an almost ethereal feeling to them that seems so perfect for this story.

This is one of those picture books being published by Sleeping Bear Press that is really meant for readers a little older than the traditional picture book age range, but is a group of books I have really come to like for their relatively unknown, but interesting topics and I find I recommend them often.

And so I hope that during this weekend, as you are enjoying your BBQs, picnics, day at the beach, in the park or the backyard of friends and family, and of course, at all the big the Memorial Day sales, you will take a moment to think of and thank those who served your country.

I know I will!

This book is recommended for readers age 6+

This book was purchased for my personal library

The Armed Forces History Museum has more information on the history, setting and symbolism of the White Table.

In Memoriam

FCP 1955-2001

From the Archives #4: Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan, illustrated by Mary A. Reardon

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:51:00 +0000

One day they weren't there and the next day, Norway was swarming with Nazis, even up by the cold, cold Arctic Circle in the little town of Riswyk, where winter lasts for most of the year. But just before their arrival;, Peter Lundstrom, 12 almost 13, knows that something is up among the adults in Riswyk.

His father, a banker, and Uncle Victor, a fisherman, and other townsmen have devised a plan to get Norway's gold out of the country and to America so that it never falls into the hands of the Nazis. And, Peter learns, it involves not only him, his younger sister Lovisa and friends Helga Thomsen and Michael Berg, but all of Riswyk's children age 10 and up.

The plan is that every child would take four bars of gold on their sleds 12 miles to where Uncle Victor's camouflaged boat is at anchor in the nearby Fjourd. They would bury the gold in the snow and build a snowman over their gold bars. The townsmen figured no one would question sledding children. After burying their gold, the children would head over to a nearby farm where they would be given dinner and a place to sleep. And during the night, Uncle Victor would come and fetch the gold with his first mate, Rolls.

And the plan works - though not as quickly as they had planned. The weight of the gold bars is too much for the younger kids and they are forced to take less than planned each time. So the whole operation stretched out to six weeks instead of three. And of course, this gives the Nazis time to cause problems.

For one, even though the schoolteacher ls serving in the Norwegian army, the Nazi commandant decides the children should return to school. A noticed is posted, but before school even resumes, a mysterious illness breaks out among the younger children. The doctor manages to convince the commandant that the 'epidemic' is highly contagious and could easily spread to his men and that he advised the children not infected to stay outdoors as much as possible.

But one day, Helga tells Peter she has heard noises and felt like she was being watched for the last few days. Worried, Peter and his mother find Uncle Victor's boat and warn him about this Nazi spy. Sure enough, while building their snowman army over the gold shortly the next day, the Nazi soldier shows up. Luckily, Uncle Victor and Rolls were right there and capture the soldier, taking him to the hidden boat.

The soldier tells them that his name is Jan Lasek and he is from Poland, but was taken by the Nazis when they invaded his country because he can speak many languages. He was forced into a Nazi uniform, but really just wants to go with Uncle Victor to America.

But the next day, the Nazis are out looking for him and when the children refuse to answer any of their questions, the commandant gets angry and is just about to discover Lovisa's buried gold when Peter hits him in the ear with a snowball. Taken into Nazi custody and locked in a cell, Peter decides saving the gold was worth anything the Nazis can do to him.

Will Peter be able to escape the Nazis before they take any action against him? Or was moving all that gold in vain?

Snow Treasure was written in 1942, after Marie McSwigan read a newspaper article about Norway's gold being smuggled out of the country. In her Forward, she describes what she believed to be true about the children who delivered the gold on their sleds to a waiting ship. However, over time this story has been questioned and it seems there is no proof that it is true. And so at the end of the book, an additional note is included to that effect.

I really wanted to like this story as much as I did the first time I read it, but now, reading it as an adult with more knowledge of WWII, the story was too slow moving and felt almost too naive for today's reader. I also thought that the writing sounded dated and it made the story of moving millions of dollars in Norwegian currency on sleds for six weeks past the Nazis not not feel very dangerous or really exciting, the more so because I didn't really connect with any of the characters.

On the other hand, on the March 15, 1942 the New York Times reviewer wrote:

It is a story of courage and wits and grim determination, and though the most tragic aspects of the invasion have no place in it, it makes plain to readers of 9 to 12 the treachery and arrogance with which the enemies of three-quarters of the world are trying to stamp out freedom.

Snow Treasure is richly illustrated with a number of black and white illustrations by Mary A. Reardon in what appears to be either pencil or charcoal. This wasn't one of the best books I have read about Norway in WWII, and while I still like the idea of the story, I just don't like the actual story as enthusiastically as I used to. However, this is one of those novels that designed to show children that no matter what they can make a difference and for that reason, I think it is worth reading. And it is an excellent example of how a community can come together to achieve a goal.

A useful Teacher's Guide is available for Snow Treasure here

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

This is book 4 of my 2013 Pre-1960 Classic Children's Books Reading Challenge hosted by Turning the Pages

Barbed Wire Baseball by Marissa Moss, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:37:00 +0000

From the time he was a young boy and saw his first baseball game, Kenochi "Zeni" Zenimura wanted to play baseball - he wanted that more than anything. And he was well on his way towards living his dream when he was old enough, managing local teams and playing with the Fresno Nisei League and the Fresno Twilight League, going to exhibition games in Japan, even playing with star players of the New York Yankees. It seemed Zeni was on top of the world, at least until December 7, 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

By now married with two teenage sons, Zeni and his family were forced to move to an internment camp just because they were of Japanese descent. Located on the Gila River Indian Reservation, it was hot and dry desert with too many people crowded into barrack after barrack, each containing row upon row of cots.

While families tried to make a home out of their allotted space, putting up curtains and decorating with all kinds of personal mementos, Zeni still dreamed about baseball and decided he was going to play - right in the desert!

And so he picked a spot and began to clear the grass and rocks, hard work in the desert heat. Yet before he knew it, others joined in to help, including his own sons. Using his ingenuity, his power of persuasion and any other means possible, little by little, Zeni and his helpers began to turn the desert into a baseball field, right down to bleaches for people to sit and watch games. And while the men worked on building a field, the women sewed uniforms out of potato sacks. Lastly, equipment was purchased with funds collected from among the detainees.

Barbed Wire Baseball is an excellent introduction to both Japanese American baseball and the internment of Japanese American in World War II. Marissa Moss gives the same attention to detail in her text that Zeni gave to creating his baseball field. And the beautiful illustrations by Yuko Shimizu bring the whole story together. This is the first children's book that Shimizu has illustrated and for it, she used a Japanese calligraphy brush and ink, than scanned and colored the illustrations with Photoshop, so that the colors give a real sense of the time.

At the end of Barbed Wire Baseball, there is an Afterword about Kenichi Zenimura life, as well as an Author's Note and an Artist's Note, which you may not want to miss reading. Moss has also included an useful Bibliography for further exploration of Japanese American baseball.

I had never heard of Kenochi Zenimura before, probably because I'm not much of a baseball person, but I really was impressed with his perseverance and dedication to creating a place where he and his fellow detainees could enjoy playing or watching baseball in an otherwise desolate place and that would give them all a sense of accomplishment and community. And having lived in Phoenix, AZ for 4 years and being somewhat familiar with the desert around it, I really understood what an accomplishment it was.

1927: Zenimura standing between Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth
(also depicted on Page 10 of Barbed Wire Baseball)

This book is a Picture Book for Older Readers and is recommeded for readers age 7+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

Nonfiction Monday is hosted this week by Perogies & Gyoza

After by Morris Gleitzman

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:48:00 +0000

After the Nazis took my parents I was scared
After they killed my best friend I was angry
After they ruined my thirteenth birthday I was determined
To get to the forest
To join forces with Gabriek and Yuli
To be a family
To defeat the Nazis after all.

After I finished reading Once, the first story about Felix, 10, a young Jewish boy on the run from the Nazis, I wanted to know more about this brave boy and Zelda, the six year old who became his friend. And so, Morris Gleitzman gave us Then, which did indeed continue the story of Felix and Zelda. When I finished reading that second book, I still wanted to know more and so along came book three, called Now. But this is the story of 80 year old Felix and his granddaughter Zelda, 10. But wait, Now ended in the middle of the war. What happened to Felix in the last two years of the war? Where and how did Felix spend them? Well, we know that he spent time helping partisans with his friend Gabriek. But, how the heck did that come about?

Well, now there is After. After returns to the war, where it is 1945 and Felix has been hiding for two years in a hidey hole in Gabriek's barn, emerging once a night to eat and excercise. The hidey hole is right under the hooves of Gabriek's horse Dom. On the night of his 13th birthday, Felix hears Gabriek talking to some men with guns. Nazis? But they are speaking Polish and are not wearing uniforms and there is a lady wearing a red scarf with them. Confused and scared, Felix decides to follow them when they head off to the forest with Gabriek. Afraid they are going to kill Gabriek, Felix tries to rescue him by yelling at his captors. With their guns pointed and ready to shoot, Felix gives himself up to save Gabriek - only they aren't Nazis, they're partisans and Gabriek is one of them and they have just sabotaged a Nazi train.

When it is all over, Felix is allowed to go home with Gabriek, but when they get there, the farm is on fire, set by the Nazis. They manage to save the horse and find their way to the partisan camp, asking to permanently join. But Felix is an outsider and must prove himself - by stealing a gun from a Nazi. The lady in the red scarf, Yuli, takes him to a village and tells him what to do.

Felix ends up joining the partisans, but as the doctor's assistant not as a fighter. He befriends the maternal Yuli, even fantasizes that Gabriek and Yuli could be his new parents. But the war is still going on, and the more the Nazis are defeated, the more hateful and destructive they become. Life is still precarious - for Felix and for the partisans.

There is much more in store for Felix and Gabriek before the end of the war, but it would probably require a **Spoiler Alert** and I think it needs to be experienced first hand. Suffice it to say, that After did, indeed, give me the sense of closure that I really needed on Felix's story.

Gleitzman, we know, is a master storyteller and the four books that comprise Felix's history are no exception. Caught in one of the darkest periods, witness to all kinds of horrors, he gives us a Felix who has managed to maintain his sense of humanity, fairness and imagination throughout and it is all incredibly believable. And in After, we see the man that Felix will become - a doctor who wants to heal the wounds of the world - small wonder.

After is a true coming of age book. Had things been different, Felix would have had a bar mitzvah at 13 instead of joining a partisan group. But even so, there is a very discernible change in Felix in this book. He is not a young boy anymore, praying to Richmal Crompton, but has a sense of maturity about him that becomes all the more obvious and poignant when he is put into a paternal position of taking care of three Jewish sisters hiding from the Nazis.

I am sorry to say good-bye to Felix now, but am comforted by the fact that I can reread his story anytime I want to. His story is sad, funny, violent and painful, but so well worth reading.

Patience has never been my strong suit, so as soon as I knew it was available in Australia, NZ, and the UK, I also knew I had to order After from The Book Depository (free shipping, Americans!) because I don't know when the American edition is going to come out. Sound good? Why wait? You can read the first chapter right here on The Morris Gleitzman Collection.

And thank you, Mr. Gleitzman, for doing such a bang up job telling us Felix's story.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was purchased for my personal library.

His Majesty's Hope (A Maggie Hope Mystery #3) by Susan Elia MacNeal

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:27:00 +0000

His Majesty's Hope is the third book in Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope Mystery Series. Maggie, you will remember, is a Brit who was raised by her aunt in the United States after her parents died in an accident. She went to England to sell her grandmother's house which she had inherited and ended up staying there once the war started in 1939.

In the first book, Mr. Churchill's Secretary, Maggie, who is a brilliant mathematician, found herself working for the PM and is soon caught up in solving the mystery of who and why his previous secretary was murdered - and it involves her own father, you know the one that is dead.

In the second book, Princess Elizabeth's Spy, Maggie is sent undercover to Windsor Castle under the guise of maths tutor to Princess Elizabeth. But again finds herself in the midst of a murder mystery and lots of decoding of messages -and it involves her own mother, you know, the one that is dead.

In book three, Maggie has just finished training in Winston Churchill's elite SOE (Special Operations Executive) as a spy for Britain. First off, she is to parachute into Germany to deliver some radio crystals to the Resistance in Berlin - in and out in three days time. But when the opportunity comes along for a job as companion to the pregnant daughter of a high ranking Nazi, Gustav Oberg, Maggie jumps at the chance to perhaps uncover information that would be valuable to Britain's war effort.

But what she finds doesn't make sense until she gets friendly with Elise Hess, a nurse at Charité Hospital who has herself uncovered some disturbing information about what's happening to some of Germany's children. And it doesn't take long for Maggie to find herself on the run from the Gestapo in Berlin. And yes, this novel also involves family members and more, but that's all I can say without the need of a spoiler alert.

I loved the first two Maggie Hope mysteries and couldn't wait to get my hands on this one (I received an ARC from the publisher a while ago, read it immediately, and just reread it). Macneal has really honed her skills as a historical mystery writer. His Majesty's Hope is a taut, suspenseful story involving some disturbing programs that the Nazis had in place to secure their position as "Master Race." There is also just enough romance without over doing it.

Though His Majesty's Hope is a lot edgier than the first two books, I think it still retains its appeal to YA readers who enjoy mysteries. You could, perhaps, say that this mystery is less of a cozy than the previous two because of some of the subject matter, but I certainly think it is still borderline cozy. It isn't a classic murder mystery in the same way as the previous two books.

Maggie is becoming a character with a strong personality, though sometimes she can be a little petulant and willful, but that just makes her all the more realistic. Still, I like that way she uses mathematics to solve many problems and this novel also involves a clever cipher that I found to be fun.

There is a subplot with Maggie's friend David, who is gay. Being gay at that time was still illegal and in fact, Alan Turing, who broke the German Enigma Code that helped Britain so much in the war, was gay and was tried and convicted in 1952. In 1954, he committed suicide using cyanide poison at age 42. MacnNeal doesn't include a gay character because it is cute to do, but rather to point out the dangers for gay people at that time, when you would think more tolerance would be shown given what the Nazis were doing.

A word about the cover art - once again, it is great and feels so of the time.

So if you want a nice nail-biter of a mystery, give the Maggie Hope mysteries a try. If you are already a fan of Maggie's than you are in luck - this novel will be available on May 14, 2013

I sure hope there is a fourth Maggie on the way!

This book is recommended for readers age 13+
This book was an ARC sent to my by the publisher

This is book 1 of my 2013 Crusin' with the Cozies Reading Challenge hosted by Socrates' Book Reviews

This is book 3 of my 2013 European Reading Challenge hosted by Rose City Reader

This is book 6 of my 2013 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry

Sunday Funnies #9: Donald Duck and his Victory Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Sun, 12 May 2013 14:13:00 +0000

First, I would like to wish everyone

A Very Happy Mother's Day!

Second, I would like to wish my kiddo

A Very Happy Birthday!

I hope you and Lipeng do something fun today.

Third, since I live in the city, I only have a little herb garden in my window, but today I have spent the morning chasing the birds away from it (a chicken wire fence is in the making), but since I reviewed a book about the importance of Victory Gardens in WWII and it is pretty much planting time, I thought I would post this old Donald Duck comic about birds and Victory Gardens. Donald's Victory Garden first appeared in this edition of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories April 1943 #31 (in color, not B&W):

Page 1 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 2 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 3 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 4 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 5 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 6 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 7 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 8 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 9 (click to enlarge and read)

Page 10 (click to enlarge and read)

Maybe I will print some of these out and attach them to a Popsicle stick and put them in my window box to keep away the birds.

HAPPY GARDENING!

The Victory Garden by Lee Kochenderfer

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:05:00 +0000

It is spring 1943 and for 11 year old Teresa Marks the war has turned personal - her beloved older brother Jeff was off in Europe flying B-24s, a dream come true for him, but not for her. It is also time for planting the annual Victory Garden and resurrecting the annual competition for best tomatoes with the Markses curmudgeony neighbor Tom Burt. But just as the planting and competition gets underway, Tom Burt is seriously injured in a tractor accident and must spend the summer in the hospital.

Rather than plow his entire garden under, and knowing it is his pride and joy, Teresa suggests that one of the ways her class can raise money for the schools war bond competition would be to take over Tom Burt's garden and sell the produce. No one is more pleased than Teresa when six kids volunteer, even if the new kid, troublemaker Billy Riggs, thinks it's a bad idea.

The kids, called the Young Sprouts by the local newspaper, work hard on the Tom Burt's Victory Garden. But one morning, Teresa wakes up to a trampled garden and a broken St. Francis statue belonging to the very gentle Mrs. Burt. Naturally, she is convinced that Billy Riggs did it to spite the Young Sprouts.

At the same time, Tom Burt's big dog Wolf goes missing from the relatives who are caring for him during his master's hospital stay. The police seem to believe the dog will make its way home and sure enough, one day Teresa finds the dog under the Burt's porch with Billy Riggs. Dirty and badly injured, Billy had been trying to help the frightened animal. Together, they nurse Wolf, but when Teresa notices a piece of the broken statue lodged in the dogs side, she think that Billy Riggs may have had nothing to do with the trampled garden after all.

Throughout the summer, as the kids work hard in the garden and at selling their produce, Billy comes and goes, each time offering advice and help to Teresa while avoiding the other kids. Pretty soon, Teresa begins to think of him as a friend, but then he disappears along with his alcoholic father, their run down house closed and deserted.

And Teresa is surprised to realize how much she misses him.

The Victory Garden is an interesting novel. It is a real slice of life, coming of age story. Teresa talks about reading Life magazine and that is exactly how this novel feels - like a story out of Life about how communities are coping with the war. Which may be why it has such an 'in the middle of things' feeling to it, and not just because it is directed at middle grade readers. It is set in the middle of Kansas, in the middle of the US, in the middle of the war and, with the exception of Billy Riggs, among very middle class people. Days pass, vegetable grow, and small town Kansas begins to feel almost idyllic in the midst of war. And yet, in the midst of all that middleness, the Young Sprouts are learning some very valuable lessons and some painful truths about life. Especially Teresa, who was very happy believing she knows how to keep bad things away - like as long as she uses her 'secret weapon' on the tomatoes they will be big and juicy and award winning just the way her brother liked them, and that as long as her brother is in the air in his B-24, he will be safe, and that planting a victory garden will help win the war and bring everyone home safely.

A US poster encouraging people to grow
their own vergtables

But can Teresa learn that magical thinking doesn't actually work in the middle real life?

Teresa was right in thinking that a victory garden could help win the war. Victory gardens were a very important part of life on the home front. These gardens began to appear everywhere there was room to plant - back yards, allotments, public lands, rooftops and in England, there were even gardens planted in bomb craters (see my post Victory through Vegetables: Woolton Pie). The American, British and German governments all encouraged citizens to grow their own food to supplement their food supply during rationing and to allow more food to be sent to their troops. And it victory gardens turned out to have an unexpected benefit to folks on the home front - it brought them together as a community, just as it does in The Victory Garden.

This book is recommended for readers aged 10+
This book was given to me by a friend

Sorrowline, Book 1 of the Timesmith Chronicles by Niel Bushnell

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:23:00 +0000

It is 2013 and Jack Morrow, 12, is visiting his mother's grave while his dad explains that while he is in jail, Jack will be staying with his aunt. Not at all happy about this, Jack rubs his hand on his mum's gravestone, memories instantly start to flooding his mind and he finds himself in the graveyard in 2008, the year his mum died, with a man claiming to be his dead granddad.

But before anything can be explained to Jack, dirt and dust start swirling into human shape, Dustmen, his granddad calls them, and tells Jack to find a gravestone from 1940 and to go there and find his younger self and that Jack must protect the powerful Rose of Annwyn Not knowing what he is talking about, but threatened by the Dustman, Jack finds the 1940 gravestone and, with another flood of memories, ends up in wartime London.

And sure enough, he does manage to find the much younger teenage version of his grandfather, Davey. It seems that Jack is a Yard Boy, having the ability to travel along the Sorrowline that connects every gravestone to the date of the person's death. In fact, there is a whole other world, the First World, that Jack did know about, peopled with Yard Boys, Dustman, Paladins (undead knights), Boagymen, and of course, the power hungry, evil Rouland, who is also seeking the Rose of Annwyn.

Yard Boys normally only travel downstream, that is from present to past and not very far into the past at that. But Jack has the ability to be able to travel not only downstream, and quite far back in the past, as far as 1813, but upstream as well, and he can even take a non-Yard Boy with him, making him a very special Yard Boy.

Naturally, given his ability, and not fully understanding things yet, Jack begins to formulate the idea that he can return to 2008 and prevent his mother's death, something he has never come to terms with. And even though Davey keeps reminding him that he can't change history, Jack stubbornly holds on to this idea right up to the end. But naturally, it isn't as easy as he thought - Rouland has other uses for him, should he be able to capture and get Jack under his power.

At the center of everything is the Rose of Annwyn. And so the quest is who will get to it first - Jack or Rouland? It is a fight between good and evil in the First World, just like the one that is raging in 1940 between the allied and axis powers - a rather nice parallel, I thought.

This is a real action-packed fantasy adventure with lots of time travel. I particularly liked the way the time travel element worked - simply by rubbing his fingers over the death date on a gravestone opened the Sorrowline for Jack. And I thought it was a nice touch to include the memories of the deceased as he traveled back in time. Memories are so much a part of a person's life.

On thing that did annoy me was that the Rose of Annwyn was really fully explained and it came late in the book. But that is a small complaint and the excitement of the quest for it made up for that.

Aside from the parallel of power crazed leaders, I asked myself why was Jack sent back to the Blitz. Well, the most obvious reason it that it fit with his grandfather's age. The other obvious reason - the Blitz brought its own destruction of property and diverted people's attention, so that any destruction the First World inflicted on the Second World would be chalked up to the Blitz. And no one would pay much attention to Jack, Davy. Otherwise, this isn't really a WW2 book, though the descriptions of the Blitz are really spot on.

This is the first book in a series, so a lot a time is spent explaining things to the reader that they need to know to enjoy this and future books in the series. But since Jack was also a novice to this new world he has become a part of, the intros and explanations worked beautifully into the story.

This is a British book that I bought from the Book Depository, so I don't know if it will be published in the US or not, but it is still available online if you want to read it. And I would recommend it if you like time travel, fantasy, adventure and good world building. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to Book 2, due out in 2014.

This book is recommended for readers 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

It's Monday! What are you reading? #3

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:19:00 +0000

It's Monday! What are you reading? is the original weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's Monday! What are you reading? - from Picture Books to YA is a kidlit focused meme just like the original and is hosted weekly by Teach Mentor Texts. The purpose is the same: to recap what you have read and/or reviewed and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week.

Last week, I probably read less than I have in a long, long time. I was down in Washington DC, visiting family and doing other things and just had no time to really be able to get into a book, which is not a good thing when you have two different blogs. But I did read and World War II: a visual history of the world's darkest days by Sean Callery and Odette's Secrets by Maryann MacDonald, none the less:

This week, I plan to read the following (all descriptions from the publisher's blurbs):

Kid Soldier by Jennifer Maruno
Fatherless and penniless, fifteen-year-old Richard Fuller wants a bike, so Mr. Black, the baker hires him to help with deliveries. Mr. Black entertains him with army stories and teaches him Morse code. He invites Richard to attend the opening ceremonies of the local 1939 military camp. Infatuated with army life, Richard takes part in Army training camp under an assumed name. When war looms, he makes the most impulsive decision in his life and enlists.
He travels to England, witnesses the terror of the Battle of Britain, the horrible death of a German pilot, is caught in the London Blitzkrieg, and is wounded himself. When his true age is discovered, Richard faces a possible court-martial.
Will Richard’s desire for adventure lead to disaster so early in his life?

After by Morris Gleitzman
In the fourth part of Felix's story, continuing his adventures in World War Two, he faces perhaps his greatest challenge - to find hope when he's lost almost everything, including his parents. As Europe goes through the final agonizing stages of the war, Felix struggles to reconcile hatred and healing. He's helped by a new friend, but if he should lose her as well ...

(my review of Once, Then and Now, the first three books about Felix and his survival while on the run from the Nazis.)

Sorrowline by Niel Bushnell
The past is not a frozen place. Graveyards are not dead ends. And if the Sorrowline lets you in there is a hidden world of adventure waiting behind every gravestone.
Just when 12-year-old Jack Morrow’s life is falling apart he discovers his natural ability to travel through Sorrowlines: channels that connect every gravestone with the date of the person’s death. Confused and alone Jack finds himself in 1940. He embarks on an adventure through London during the Blitz with Davy, his teenage grandfather, to find a mystical Rose that might just save his mother’s life, a mother who he has already seen die. But the terrible power of the Rose of Annwn, is sought by many, and the forces of a secret world are determined to find it first. With a league of Undead Knights of his trail, commanded by the immortal Rouland, can Jack decipher the dark secret hidden at the heart of his family? Can he change his own destiny and save his mother?

His Majesty's Hope (Maggie Hope Mystery #3) by Susan Elia MacNeal
...whip-smart heroine Maggie Hope returns to embark on a clandestine mission behind enemy lines where no one can be trusted, and even the smallest indiscretion can be deadly.World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive—a black ops organization designed to aid the British effort abroad—and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine. Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters. But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war—and of her own past.

(my review of Mr. Churchill's Secretary (Maggie Hope Mystery #1) and Princess Elizabeth's Spy (Maggie Hope Mystery #2)

What are you reading this week?

Odette's Secrets by Maryann MacDonald

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:15:00 +0000

"My name is Odette.

I live in Paris."

Odette Meyers lives with her parents in an apartment building in Paris and spends a lots of time with her godmother, Madame Marie, who is also the building's caretaker. Odette is around 5 when the Second World War begins. Her father and uncle immediately enlist in the French army, but are soon captured and sent to a Nazi labor camp. Despite the war, life is OK until the Nazis march into Paris and changes drastically for everyone. And Odette quickly learns that being a secular Jew doesn't matter to the Nazis - they hate all Jews equally.

One night, when the Nazis are rounding up Jews to send east, Madame Marie hides Odette and her mother in her broom closet and deftly manages to keep the Nazis from searching it and the Meyer's apartment. But life is now too dangerous for Odette and her mother, who also works with the French Resistance and it is decided to send Odettte away. With the help of Madame Marie and her husband Monsieur Henri, Odette is sent to live with a family in the French countryside. There she must pretend to be Catholic, learning everything a young Catholic girl would need to know. As she quickly assimilates herself into the life of the family, church and country life, Odette begins to feel safer:

"I know the reason I feel safe in the country.
It's because here,
I am not a Jew."

But when her mother comes at Christmas to visit, she is not really pleased to see her daughter in this new Catholic light, even though it is the reason her child is safe. Before the winter is over, she comes to take Odette away to a little cottage in the country where they can live together. They adjust and begin living a quiet life, until one day Odette's new best friend accuses them of being Jews who have fled Paris. And though she denies the accusation, Odette is nevertheless attacked by the other schoolchildren. Life is again getting more dangerous for Odette and her mother and now the old farmer Père René has overheard Odettte's prayer for Our Lady to watch over them because they are Jewish. Will Père René keep this secret, just as Odette must keep all the secrets she has in order to be safe?

Though fictional, Odette's Secrets is based on the real Odette Meyers. Having acquired as many facts about Odette's life as she could, Maryann MacDonald filled in the blanks using her imagination and ides. The story follows Odette's life for the length of the war, or until she is around 10 years old. It is written in free verse, and at the beginning, Odette's voice is age appropriate and ages as she ages.

Free verse is a style I am really beginning to like for some historical Fiction written for young readers. Odette's Secrets. Its brevity provides a more focused perspective, allowing the reader to really feel the words being read. And though I would recommend a steady diet of free verse novels, I think it is the ideal form for

There a a number of photographs throughout the novel of the real Odette, her mother and the family she lived with. I was sorry there was no picture of Madame Marie, with whom Odette has such a close relationship. This is a wonderful story of one Jewish girl's survival in WWII in Frances. According to the Author's Note at the back of the book, 11, 400 children were deported from France, but 84% of French children did survive. How, MacDonald wondered, did that happen? Odette's Secrets is the result of that thought.

There is a very interesting interview with author Maryann MacDonald over at The Hopeful Heroine in which she discusses her inspiration for this story and her reasons for writing it in free verse.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was purchased for my personal library.

World War II: a visual history of the world's darkest days by Sean Callery

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:51:00 +0000

This is a shiny new book from Scholastic, part of their Discover More series. It covers World War II, beginning with the end of World War I and the rise of Nazism right through to the end and even some of the postwar period. The layout consists of different time lines for each aspect of the war, as follows: the path to war, Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific theater, the war in Africa and the Middle East and the End of the War, followed by subcategories of information pertinent to the years covered in each timeline.

This is by no means an in-depth history of the war, but it is a comprehensive one and what it does is give a little information on a wide range of topics. Two of the topics I liked best were the Resistance and Codes. After reading so many books about how resistance workers or Special Operations Executive agents parachuting into an occupied area with a radio transmitter disguised in a suitcase, it was nice to see a large, clear photograph of a real one. The same was true under the section on Codes, which I have always been fascinated with, particularly the German Enigma, a cipher machine which produced messages that the German thought were unbreakable. Again there is a up-close photo of a real Enigma machine.

In the side margins of some of the pages are ways to get more information about what is covered, as well as definitions of words that may be unfamiliar. Since I am interested in pop culture, I used that page as an example:

Click to enlarge

There is also a free digital book that you can download from Scholastic called WWII Heroes and Heroines. It comes in PDF form so you will need Adobe Reader. I actually did download this digital book and look through it. I liked that among the adult heroes and heroines there was a section about the children who were also heroes, beginning with Anne Frank, but also including many unknown and unsung child.

Before I started this blog, I would have thought that young readers were not terribly interested in WWII beyond some interesting novels and what they learned in school, but the longer I write this, the more I hear from kids who are genuinely interested in it. This is an ideal book for a classroom, a school library and certainly a homeschooling situation, but it is also a great beginning reference book for any kid who is showing some curiosity.

World War II is truly an visual history, with an abundance of photographs, maps, and illustrations, some familiar, some not and none very graphic. I was very happy to see that under the Holocaust section there was a special homage to the 1.5 million children who perished as well as a section on Wartime Childhood, since there are areas young people are very interested in. "What was it like for kids?" is probably the question I am asked the most.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was provided by the publisher.

Nonfiction Monday is hosted this week by A Mom's Spare Time

Mister Orange by Truus Matti

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:29:00 +0000

Front Cover of Mister Orange

Racing along New York City streets one March 1945 day, Linus Muller stops to catch his breath when his attention is suddenly arrested by a familiar face on a poster. Noting the address on the poster, Linus changes course and sets off for it instead.

Flashback to September 1943: Linus is 12 years old and has just inherited his older brother's shoes and his job delivering groceries for his parent's shop. In fact, with six kids and a war on, everything is a hand me down, except for Linus's older brother Albie, who is off to war now that he is old enough to enlist. Linus has also inherited Albie's bed and has been made caretaker of Albie's superhero comic books collection, a love they shared, as well as Albie drawing of his own superhero Mr. Superspeed, with whom Linus keeps a running conversation while he makes his deliveries.

As Linus begins his life as a delivery boy, he meets all the customers and quickly learns their quirky ways, like Mrs. DeWinter who always has another task waiting for Linus to do when he brings her groceries. His job takes him all over the Upper East Side of Manhattan, an area Linus knows like the back of his hand. Late in the afternoon, on his first day, his mother hands Linus a crate of oranges and tells him to deliver them to 15 East 59th Street. Little did Linus know this would be his most interesting monthly delivery.

Living there is an elderly painter with a difficult to remember name and a studio that has stark white walls, except for the groups of brightly colored squares and rectangles here and there. Linus started called the painter Mister Orange and it turns out that Mr. Orange had recently arrived from Nazi-occupied Holland to escape Hitler's oppressive control on the arts.

Meanwhile, brother Albie is still excited to go to war and ships out to Italy as soon as basic training is over. At first, Albie's letters are still filled with enthusiastic descriptions about being a new recruit and the friends he has made. From Italy, he asks Linus to play a rather harmless practical joke on a friend's mother for her birthday and leave a card from her son at the same time. Linus carries out his mission with stealth, but then Albie's next letter is more somber and sad, as he reports his friend has fallen in battle.

Linus understands how it feels to lose a friend. It appears that he is losing his best friend to an older boy who dislikes Linus as much as Linus dislikes him.

And so his visits to Mr. Orange become a bright spot in his life and it is there that the two talk about life. Angry at the reality of war that Albie describes, Linus decides that comics and superheroes are imaginary escapes from all the horrors in life and rejects them completely. Now he doesn't even have the voice of Mr. Superspeed to accompany him. But as Mr. Orange talks to him about his painting and even teaches him how to dance the boogie woogie, he also tells Linus about the importance of imagination, especially during wartime: "If imagination were as harmless as you think...then the Nazis couldn't be so scared of it." (pg 122) All the while, Mr. Orange works on his latest painting, a freedom he would not have had if he has remained in Europe.

Can Mister Orange help Linus through this difficult time?

Originally written in Dutch and skillfully translated by Laura Watkinson, Mister Orange is itself a wonderful historical fiction work of imagination that skillfully portrays the daily hustle and bustle of life in one New York City neighborhood during WW2 as Linus makes his deliveries. I grew up in Brooklyn and Manhattan at a time when Mom and Pop grocery stores were still common (my brother's first job was delivering groceries), and if you had a fight with your best friend, you just went over to their house to make up - just the way Linus does - very simple, very easy. So I know that this and more of Mister Orange is pretty spot on. And so is the Action Comic that Linus buys for Albie - November 1943 No. 66. Matti has done her research well.

But the friendship between Mister Orange and Linus would be unusual, though maybe not impossible. In a way, however, it is a nice example of how even a short lived friendship can impact our lives, in this case from September 1943 to February 1944.

Mister Orange is a nice coming-of-age story that unfolds slowly and steadily, but should still engage young readers, though probably not everyone. Linus is a thoughtful, introspective, observant boy who really loves life, at least until reality comes knocking and he finds his world terribly shaken.

I put Mister Orange on hold at the library based only on the cover and knowing it was a WW2 story because I loved the cover of the American edition. Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) is one of my favorite abstract painters, so as soon as I saw the cover, I knew he would be in the story somewhere, someway. Jenni Desmond, the illustrator of Mister Orange, has really captured both the motion of the city as Linus travels around and the sense of movement that Mondrian's painting reflect, so that it becomes such a wonderful mixture of Linus's life, and Mondrian's painting, which is as it should be. I found myself going over it again and again after I finished reading the book.

In the back on the book is a section called Mister Mondrian. This FYI section describes his life and the paintings he did while live in New York City. The painting that he was working on during Linus's visit was his never completed Victory Boogie Woogie, see here:

Victory Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian

Mondrian's studio had an immediate, deep impact on Linus and helped him realize hope for the future. Here, though, are photos of that studio, almost exactly as Linus describes them (right down to the orange crates):

(click the images to enlarge them)

There are some who think this book would not appeal to young readers, but I think they will enjoy reading about Linus and his life, and the person who helped him work things out for himself.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was borrowed from the Webster Branch of the NYPL

My Chocolate Year: a novel with 12 recipes by Charlotte Herman

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 12:54:00 +0000

There was just no way a chocoholic such a myself could pass on reading a book called My Chocolate Year. And I am glad I did.

It is September 1945, the war is over and Dorrie Meyers is starting fifth grade. And the best part is that her best friend Sunny Shapiro is in her class and their teacher is the very popular Miss Fitzgerald. Popular because each year, Miss Fitzgerald has a Sweet Semester, in which each student thinks up a dessert to make, writes an essay about it and in January they all bring in their entries and a prize goes out to one winner dessert and one winning essay.

Dorrie loves chocolate passionately and is very excited about Sweet Semester, except for one problem - she has no idea how to make anything, let alone a prize winning dessert. And this year is a special Sweet Semester because not only will family members be invited, but the winners will also get their pictures in the Chicago Daily News. In addition, since there are now so many orphans in Europe as a result of the war, the class will has a donation jar set up to collect money to send to a charity which cares for the orphans.

The subject of orphans soon hits home for Dorrie. Her grandparents had all migrated to America, but there were still relatives who had remained in Lithuania. No one knew what happened to them after war. Since they were Jewish the worst was feared and Dorrie's mother has been making inquires to find them. Then, one November morning, good news arrives. Victor Dubin, son of Dorrie's Aunt Mina and Uncle Joseph and grandson of Dorrie's Bubbie, was found living in a Displaced Persons camp. No sooner found, than arrangements begin to be made to bring Victor to America. Sadly, no other family members survived.

Victor, now an orphan, and orphan jar in school get Dorrie to thinking about the Margaret O'Brien and the movie Journey for Margaret, about a young girl orphaned during the London Blitz. How, Dorrie wonders, did she play such a convincing orphan? So she writes a letter to the actress to ask.

Meanwhile, Dorrie and Sunny experiment with different possibilities for Sweet Semester. The first idea, Chocolate Covered Gum, dissolves into a chocolaty mess. Their chocolate covered nuts and raisins clusters taste delicious, but was that all chocolate in them? Oh, and when you add flour to brownies using the electric mixer, it is much easier if you turn the mixer off.

It is really beginning to look like Dorrie isn't going to win that Sweet Semester competition despite the fact that both her mother and Buddie are excellent bakers. She just doesn't seem to have a natural instinct for baking. She really needs a miracle...could that miracle come in the form of both real and movie orphans?

This is a lovely story about the strength and importance of family. It is told in Dorrie's voice and even though it is not written as a diary, it reads like on. The book follows the year though all the Jewish holidays, starting with Rosh Hashanah and Dorrie explains the story and Jewish customs for celebrating each holiday for the benefit of readers who may not be familiar with them. She also talks about the war and it's effect on her family, and when Victor comes, we hear his story in detail, but not so much detail that it would be too much for the targeted age of intended readers. This is a book, after all, that is written for kids who are beginning to learn about the Holocaust.

Now, the 12 recipes. Not all are real recipes, but some are and they are made from scratch. My 10 year old budding chef liked that idea, since she is a cooking purist. We actually make Dorrie's Sweet Semester entry, which was so good that when I went to take a picture, they were all gone. Lesson learned - don't leave good tasting stuff unattended with kids in the house and without telling them hands off.

This book is recommended for readers age 8+
This book was purchased for my personal library

Weekend Cooking is a weekly event hosted by Beth Fish Reads

From the Archives #3: Biggles Defies the Swastika by Captain W.E. Johns

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:27:00 +0000

Not long ago I reviewed a book by John Boyne on my blog Randomly Reading called The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket. This was a really good fantasy novel about a boy who floats and must be weighed down to stay on the ground. Barnaby has a dog named Capt. W.E. Johns, which caused me to laugh when I read that. There is no explanation why that is the dog's name, but I (and others, I am sure) know exactly who Johns is.

Captain W.E. Johns was a very prolific writer with 169 books to his credit. But he is probably best known for two of his series books: 96 'Biggles' books for boys and 11 'Worrals' books for girls. Worrals, or Joan Worralson, flies for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, part of the RAF. I reviewed Worrals of the W.A.A.F in 2011. Biggles, or James Bigglesworth, learned to fly in World War I and continued flying right into World War II and beyond.

Biggles Defies the Swastika (#22 in the series and written in 1941), begins in April 1940. A Major with the RAF, Biggles has been doing some work in Oslo when he wakes up one morning to discover that the Nazis have invaded Norway. Fortunately, Biggles has false identity papers naming him as Sven Hendrik, allowing him to pass as a Norwegian who supports the Nazis until he can get to his plane and out of Norway. Arriving at the aerodome in Boda on a stolen Nazi motorcycle, Biggles finds it is under Nazi control now. Somehow, Biggles fools the Germans into thinking he is a quisling who speaks fluent German and is made a leutnant on the spot by the German commandant there. Now under a safe cover, Biggles gets himself to the Swedish border on a his stolen motorcycle and crosses over to safety.

But not for long. At the British Consul, he is told to return to Norway to do some ntelligence spying and that his friends and fellow fliers Ginger and Algy will contact him as soon as possible. Back in Norway, he hears that the Germans are looking for a British pilot named Bigglesworth who was spotted in Oslo and wanted by the Germans. Luckily, as Sven Hendrik, Biggles is ordered to look for himself and given a Gestapo pass that will allow him freedom to get around without question.

Biggles soon discovers that his old nemesis Oberleutnant Erich von Stalhein is in Norway and is desperate to capture him. Biggles calls Gestapo headquarters and tells them he has information that Bigglesworth is in Narvik and he is on his way there. But along the way, he runs into some captured British sailors. He tells them he's really a British pilot and concocts a plan for them to tell their captors that they saw Bigglesworth escape. In Narvik, Biggles finds other British POWs, including his old friend Algy, who was sent over to help him. He manages to free all the prisoners, but is then ordered back to Boda Aerodome to be questioned by von Stalhein.

Before that can happen, Biggles is ordered to Stavanger airfield by the British to gather intelligence about Nazi defenses there and then to go to Fjord 21, where he runs into his other old friend Ginger. It is time to get out of Norway now that they have the needed intelligence, but Biggles refuse to go with Algy. Meanwhile, Algy, after being freed at Narvik has returned to Boda to find Biggles.

Biggles returns to Boda, finds Algy and they make their way to Fjord 21, Ginger in his plane and escape, only to find that the Fjord is now occupied by Nazis and that Ginger is missing. But not for long. Ginger tries to rescue Biggles and Algy, but things go wrong and Algy is again captured by the Nazis. Biggles, with the help of his Gestapo pass, learns that the British warships are sailing right into a trap. He can do nothing about it though because of growing suspicion about who he really is. He accepts a ride in a water plane back to Boda and von Stalhein, because he has no choice. During the flight, Biggles overtakes the pilot. Flying low enough for the German to jump into the water, Biggles orders him out, but not before telling him they must get together after the war and have dinner together (yes, he really did say that).

***SPOILER ALERT***

Now flying a German plane, Biggles is attacked by none other than Ginger. But then Ginger is attacked by a German plane and goes down. Luckily, Biggles is able to rescue Ginger, tells him about the trap the British warships are heading into and has Ginger drop him off to find Algy. Ginger delivers his warning, sets off to find Biggles and Algy, but is captured by the Germans. Meanwhile, Bigglesand Algy are also captured by von Stalhein at Boda. But when Ginger arrives with his German captor, the three of them manage to overpower him, steal a German plane and fly safely off to England and further adventures - lots of them!

All this action/adventure tokes place in only a few days. The back and forth between Oslo, Boda and Stavanger were a bit like watching a ping pong games with airplanes, but I never got confused, in part because of the simplicity of the writing. It is not great literature, is sometimes politically incorrect and everyone smokes, but Johns seems to have understood his young readers. There is just action, constant movement, and a feeling of being in control, something young readers probably found comforting in wartime Britain.

If you are going to read them for the first time, don't take them too seriously, just have some fun, after all, they feel a bit campy nowadays. And I thought the rivalry between Biggles and von Stalhein had shades of the later rivalry between Snoopy and the Red Baron. I did, however, learn that anti aircraft flak was refered to as archie, as in 'you will probably run into lots of archie when you fly a German Dornier over Britain.'

While I have read most of the Worrals books, I seem to only have Biggle Defies the Swastika - but I have two copies of it, somehow. And both smell like they just came out of my gram's attic. Luckily, since Biggles is still somewhat popular, now editions of his books have become available recently, for your reading pleasure.

Johns with his novels

Biggles has has lots of influence on people's lives. Here are some examples:
A Life of Biggles by Hilary Mantal
I Longed to Fly with Biggles by John Crace
Good Eggs and Malted Milk: Has Biggles Stood the Test of Time by Giles Foden

More information on Biggles and his creator Captain W. E. Johns can be found Collecting Books and Magazines (a great site for all kinds of information about kids books from the past.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was purchased for my personal library

This is book 3 of my 2013 Pre-1960 Classic Children's Books Reading Challenge hosted by Turning the Pages

Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:01:00 +0000

Imagine surviving 1 ghetto, 10 concentration camps and 2 death marches. Well, here is the story of a boy who did just that.

At 10 years old, Yanek Gruener's life means friends, school and most importantly, being surrounded by loving relatives all living in the center of Krakow, Poland. But his relatives know that soon something is going to happen - after all, they are Jews in a Europe that Hitler wants to make "Jew free." Sure enough, only six days after the German invasion of Poland, Nazi soldiers march into Krakow, and not long after that, one after another rights, privileges, pleasures, food and freedom are denied its Jewish citizens, until, in 1942, when Yanek is 12, the Nazis begin building the wall that will become the Krakow Ghetto and Yanek soon finds himself living there along with thousands of other displaced Jews.

In the ghetto, Yanek and his father prove to be very resourceful in order to survive. When roundups start, to avoid be sent "to the east" and an unknown future, Yanek finds an abandoned pigeon coop on the roof of their building where the family takes up residence. To feed his family, Yanek's father manages to get bread under very dangerous circumstances. And, most telling of all, despite the danger after the Nazis forbide Jews to practice their religion, his father gets together a minyan (a quorum of 10 bar mitvahed men) late one night for Yanek's very unusual secret bar mitvah.

The ghetto proves to be only the beginning of Yanek's journey through a system of concentration camps, where survival sometimes depends of cunning, sometimes on luck, always knowing that your life is in the hands of sadistic Nazis, some of whom like to kill Jews for sport.

By the time Yanek is sent from the ghetto to the first of ten concentration camps, he has lost his family in a roundup and deportation heading "east" but finds his Uncle Moshe at Plaszów Concentration Camp. You may remember Plaszów from Schindler's List, the camp run by the very, very cruel SS Commander Amon Goeth. It is here that Yanek's Uncle Moshe teaches him survival skills that will serve him well at each camp he is sent to. As a result, Yanek's resolve to survive almost never falters, even when he comes very close to dying.

Prisoner B-3087 (B for Birkenau) is based on the life of the real Yanek/Jack Gruener. It is told in a simple, straightforward manner, narrated in the first person by the fictional Yanek, but the voice of the actual Gruener comes through clearly, giving it a sense of authenticity. Yanek never, no matter how badly he is treated, gives into feeling victimized, which is amazing, but may also account for his strong will to survive. Yanek's descriptions of certain things that he either witnesses or that were done to him are sometimes a bit hard to read, but never gratuitous and not including them would sanitize Nazi cruelty to every degree.

The narration skillfully balances these cruel, sadistic acts against the Jews with some real heartwarming moments, like the night of Yanek's secret bar mitvah, a kindness Yanek was to repay in Birkenau two years later when he is the first to volunteer to be part of a minyan for another 13 year old boy's forbidden bar mitvah, even though getting caught would mean certain death.

After I read Prisoner B-3087, I felt compelled to do two things. First, I had to make an outline of the places and events in Yanek Gruener's life as he was sent from camp to camp, sometimes in cattle cars, sometimes on foot in freezing weather. Second, I would have liked a map to get a real sense not just of where Yanek was at each part of his life under the Nazis, but also the distances he traveled. I think these would give a real appreciation of his survival. But since they didn't include map, and others might fell as I do, I found this one at the Jewish Virtual Library and modified it a bit to reflect Yanek's experience:

Click to enlarge

Prisoner B-3087 is a book that really must be read to be fully appreciated. Yanek/Jack Gruener's story is incredible, haunting, compelling, heart wrenching, rewarding and not to be missed (and you will find out how Yanek became Jack).

This book is recommended for readers age 11+
This book was received as an E-ARC from Net Galley

Books for Children of the World: The Story of Jella Lepman by Sydelle Pearl, illustrated by Danlyn Iantorno

noreply@blogger.com (Alex) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:58:00 +0000

Imagine you are a German Jew who managed to escape Hitler's Germany during the war. Now, the war is over, but you have been asked to return to Germany by the United States Army to assess what the German children living in that now decimated country need to live a better life. After all that happened to Jews in Germany, could you have done it? It would indeed take a strong, caring, forgiving person to embark on such a task, but that is exactly what Jella Lepmaan did.

As Jella traveled through Germany in an army jeep, she saw that the children needed so much - clothing, food, homes, warmth. But they also wanted books. She spoke to the General at army headquarters where she was stationed about an exhibition of children's books from around the world. The General agreed this was a good idea and, night after night, Jella wrote to publishers to ask for books donations for the exhibition. She called her letters doves of peace. And, amazingly, even after what Hitler had done to the world, publishers around the world did respond.

The books were great, but were for an exhibition, not for the children who wanted them. So, Jella decided to translate The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf into German. Then she had it printed - 30,000 copies on newsprint and a few days before Christmas, they were handed out to Germany's children.

That was just the beginning. By 1949, Jella's first children's book exhibition had grown into the International Youth Library in Munich. This research library still exists today and still collects children's books from around the world.

Sydelle Pearl's Books for Children of the World: The Story of Jella Lepman is a beautifully written homage to a very courageous woman and the library she founded. Lepman believed that just as her letters were doves of peace, books were messengers of peace and the idea of peace is a clear message in her work. Pearl is herself a librarian and it is easy to see that she believes in the power of books.

Giving out newsprint copies of The Story of
Ferdinand to children in Germany

Illustrations add so much to a book and those of Danlyn Iantorno are no exception. These bold, colorful realistic illustrations, which appear to have been rendered in oil paint, capture both the bold spirit of Jella Lepman and the varied emotions of the children. I also thought that the tones of the colors used reminded of picture books and readers from the late 1940s and 1950s reflecting the Zeitgeist of that particular time.

Be sure to read the Author's Note at the end of the book for more information about Jella Lepman and the International Youth Library. There is list of selected sources as well, should you be inclined to explore Lepman and the library further.

Bear in mind that this is a historical biography and not really a picture for young readers.

This book is recommended for readers age 8+
This book was provided to me by the publisher.

There is a wonderfully informative lesson plan based on Books for Children of the World: The Story of Jella Lepman which, though produced in 2011, is nevertheless still very useful and can be found here.

Nonfiction Monday is hosted this week by Wendie at Wendie's Wanderings