Genevieve's War by Patricia Reilly Giff

French American Genevieve Michel, 13, and her older brother André have been spending the summer of 1939 visiting their rather cold, judgmental grandmother, Mémé, helping out on her farm in Alsace, close to the Germany border.

Now, at the end of summer, André has already returned to the States and Genevieve is set to leave on the Normandie, on what may well have been the last passenger ship leaving France before the expected invasion of France by Germany. But at the last minute, Genevieve decides to remain with her grandmother. In September 1939, war is declared, and in June 1940, the Germans do indeed invade France.

Suddenly, everything changes. There are German soldiers everywhere and everyone’s farm animals and food supplies are confiscated by them. Luckily, Mémé has a secret pantry where she and Genevieve move most of their jars of food. The teacher at school is replaced by a new Nazi teachers, the French names of the students are changed to German names (Genevieve becomes Gerta), and French is outlawed, only German may be spoken at all times. French books are publicly burned, and a German officer is billeted on the farm, enjoying what little food there is, and complaining about the scarce heat.

Genevieve believes her brother has safely returned to the United States, but when she notices a sweater of his at the village book shop, she becomes suspicious of the owner, Monsieur Philippe, and decides he is not to be trusted, even though Mémé tells her she is wrong. But when the train station is sabotaged, and Genevieve learns that Rémy, a boy she likes very much, is a Resistance fighter and missing since the station was blown up, she has to turn to the bookseller for help. Can she really trust him?

Soon, she finds herself hiding Rémy from the Nazis in Mémé attic. Genevieve and even her grandmother becomes part of the local Resistance, doing what they can. Mémé has always told her granddaughter not to trust anyone, not even her best friend Katrin, but Genevieve’s a naïve, impulsive girl who always thinks she knows better. And Genevieve has to learn the hard way that people are often not who they seem to be, and friends may betray friends, while perceived enemies may turn out to be friends after all.

Until now, I have only read two of Giff’s WWII books, both of which take place on the home front, so this was a change for me. But just as she did in Willow Run and Gingersnap, Giff managed captured what life was like - this time in an occupied country. All the realities of war are there: the constant fear, the constant hunger, the winter cold, the always present mistrust, and especially the presence of an enemy who will not hesitate to use their force or weapons to get what they want. And although Genevieve constantly thinks about what life would be like in Springfield Gardens, Queens if she had gone home, to her credit, she never regrets her choice to stay with her grandmother in Alsace.

Genevieve's War is told in the first person, narrated by Genevieve so everything is filtered through her experiences. I especially liked seeing her opinion with her grandmother changed over time, as well as how Mémé's judgement of her granddaughter changed. Over the course of the war, Genevieve transforms into a capable, thoughtful young woman who comes to appreciate her grandmother, learns about her deceased father whom she never knew, and discovers a love for farm life. 

Genevieve's War is a thought-provoking novel that explores the themes of courage, defiance, and loyalty in times of peril that still manages to carry a note of hope throughout.

An Educator's Guide for Genevieve's War is available to download from the publisher, Holiday House.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was an ARC received from the publisher.

Fly, Cher Ami, Fly! The Pigeon Who Save the Lost Battalion by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Robert MacKenzie

During World War I, carrier pigeons were frequently used by the army to deliver important messages because of their innate ability to find their way home, even if it means flying over ground combat and going great distances. For one lost battalion, it was a matter of life and death.

In 1918, a battalion of the US infantry was fighting in France, surrounded by the enemy, when their radio communications went out. No one knew where these soldiers were located to send help and rescue them. There was only one chance to save themselves - send a message back home, attached to the leg of their last carrier pigeon, Cher Ami.

Flying through gun fire aimed at him by a German soldier, Cher Ami managed to avoid being hit and kept flying. Even when the Germans send a hawk after the pigeon, he managed to fly at the sun and blind the hawk just before it could sink its talons into the pigeon.

Arriving at the army's base in England, Cher Ami delivers his message, and as the army prepared to rescue their fellow soldiers, Cher Ami found his nice comfortable nest for a hard earned rest and a job well done.

The message Cher Ami carried that saved the Lost Battalion

There are lots of versions of Cher Ami's story out there, but this one is aimed at young readers who probably don't know a lot about war in general, and WWI in particular. And it really doesn't give much information about war, nor is much needed. What this book does do is give kids a nice, age appropriate fiction biography of one famous heroic carrier pigeon and highlights the importance of the role they played for helping soldiers in dangerous situations (although they did more than what this story shows).

Burleigh doesn't give details about the battle that the battalion was involved in, not does he give names to any of the soldiers. This is definitely Cher Ami's story. Cher Ami's tale is complimented by the realistic illustrations of Robert MacKenzie, which are done in a palette of mainly browns and burnt oranges for the battlefield and dull smoky blue for the sky, presumable from all the weapons being shot.

I do have one problem with this fictional bio. We see Cher Ami being shot at, but the reader is not told that he is hurt. Cher Ami was actually seriously wounded on this trip, which proved to be his last. He didn't die, but one of his legs was badly hurt, so doctors fashioned him a wooden prosthetic leg to replace the injured leg. I would have like to see this within the story, not pushed in an Afterword at the end of the book.

As a book about carrier pigeons and what they are capable of, Fly, Cher Ami, Fly! would be an excellent teaching tool. It would also be useful as part of a WWI unit, but not as a primary resource.

A Cher Ami Coloring Book is available to download for free at the Home of Heroes, where you can also read more about the Lost Battalion of WWI

This book is recommended for readers age 5+
This book was purchased for my personal library

Adrift at Sea: A Vietnam Boy's Story of Survival by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch with Tuan Ho, art by Brian Deines

The plight of refugees have been in the news a lot these days because of the war in Syria. As more and more borders are closed to them, it might be a good time to remember another group of refugees who arrived on North America's shores and have contributed so much to their adopted country.

When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, and the communist government took over South Vietnam, daily life became so difficult and unbearable that families were willing to risk escaping their country in rickety boats not made for long sea voyages. But these boats were the only way out, unless you were rich.

In the Ho family, six year-old Tuan's father and older sister Linh were had escaped Vietnam in 1980 and made their way to Canada. Now, in 1981, it is Tuan's time to escape with this mother and two sisters, Lan, 9. and Loan, 10. His youngest sister Van, 4, would  have to be left behind for now. She is just too young for the trip. No one, not even the neighbors must know what Tuan and his family are up one dark night as they sneak out of the house.

Their journey to freedom begins after a truck drops them off close to the water's edge. Running for their lives, dodging soldiers and their gun fire, they are picked up in a skiff. Still dodging bullets, the overcrowded skiff takes them to a fishing boats further out in the sea.

It is hot and humid and there isn't much drinking water. When the boat springs a leak, Tuan's mother and aunt help bail out the water as quickly as they can. On the third day, the boat's engine dies and the refugees find themselves adrift on the huge and unpredictable Pacific Ocean. One day six, an American aircraft carrier is spotted and the refugees are welcomed aboard.

The Ho family, we learn, survives they harrowing ordeal, and are reunited with Tuan's father and sister in Canada. And yes, Van and her grandmother both arrive in Canada in 1985, safe and sound.

Adrift at Sea is told from Tuan's point of view, and aimed at readers about the same age as he was when he escaped Vietnam. Such a young narrator may not capture the truly difficult and risky trip in the kind of detail a book for older readers might, but he still very clearly depicts the fear, the hot sun, lack of water, and relief at being rescued at an age appropriate level that any young reader will be able understand.

Skrypuch has included a number photos of the Ho family, both in Vietnam and in Canada. She has also included a brief history of the "boat people" as the refugees came to be called. The refugees faced not only the kinds of problems that the Ho family dealt with, but there were storms, pirates and always the threat of dying of thirst and hunger, and sometimes, they found that they were not welcomed everywhere.

Using a color palette mainly of oranges, yellows and blues, Deines's highly textured oil on canvas illustrations capture all the secrecy, fear, and perils, all wrapped up in the dangerously hazy, hot, and humid weather that these refugees faced in their desire for freedom and a better life.

Adrift at Sea is a powerful historical nonfiction story that can certainly help shed light on events of the past that share a similarity to those that are happening in the world today.

This book is recommended for readers age 6+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Pajama Press

The Queen's Accomplice ( A Maggie Hope Mystery #6) by Susan Elia MacNeal

It's 1942 and Maggie is back in London after her trip with the Prime Minister to meet with President Roosevelt. She's working in an SOE (Special Operations Executive) office on Baker Street, and is understandably surprised one night when she learns that her friends have fixed up the house she inherited from a grandmother she didn't even know she had. When her old collage friend shows up after her home blows up, Maggie is glad for the company - it's a house that holds some bad memories for Maggie.

On her job, Maggie is dealing with a misogynist boss who couldn't be more dismissive of her constant appeals for equal pay for the young women who are trained operatives and being sent into enemy territory or benefits for their families should anything happen to them. When it appears that an agent in France may be compromised, Maggie can't even get him understand her seriousness of the situation. Heck, she can't even get him to call her by her actual name. Apparently, the only use "Meggie" has is to fetch him his cuppa.

And, just as Londoners begin enjoying a bit of a break from the nightly bombing by the German Luftwaffe, under cover of the intense blackout conditions a mad man, dubbed the Blackout Beast by the newspapers, emerges who begins imitating the murders of Jack the Ripper and targeting the young women who are working for the SOE. These are women in London for a short time before beings sent overseas and their unfamiliarity with their surroundings and having no friends or family nearby makes them particularly vulnerable. Readers will certainly be surprised when they discover how this new Jack is able to overcome these trained agents so easily.

Because all the victims are SOE agents, Maggie gets sent to Scotland Yard to work with Detective Chief Inspector James Durgin, who also seems a bit of a misogynist at first and not at all happy about working with a female MI-5 operative. Working together, Maggie begins to see a mathematical pattern emerging as they investigate the murders, while DCI Durgin prefers to rely on his gut feeling. As the two get closer to solving the crime, they begin to appreciate each others methods a little bit more...and maybe even each other.

If you have been reading Maggie Hope mysteries as I have been, you know that by now it is a little like visiting an old friend. We know all about her friends, her boyfriends, her family history. And yet the novels never feel stale. In The Queen's Accomplice, Maggie's college friend Sarah, a dancer by profession, and her old boyfriend Hugh Thompson, are about to be sent to France as SOE operatives, passing themselves off as a married couple. Her old boyfriend John Sterling is still in California, working for Disney creating wartime propaganda. Maggie believes her mother, Clara Hess, a German and a high level Nazi supporter, and whom she never knew until the war, is dead. And her newly discovered German half sister Elise Hess had been sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, but Maggie is now excitedly expecting her in London.

The Queen's Accomplice seemed like perfect book to read during Women's History Month, since MacNeal really highlights some of the difficulties women doing war work encountered back then. The parochial attitudes will no doubt resonate with some readers in today's new world.

And I was very happy to see MacNeal's reference to Lion Feuchtwanger's 1925 novel Jud Süß which is a formidable counter to the horrible, anti-Semitic movie made by the Nazis.

There is lots going on in her life, but Maggie Hope is a cozy mystery reader's delight.

This book is recommended for readers age 14+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

Seeking Refuge: a graphic novel by Irene N. Watts, illustrated by Kathryn E. Shoemaker

Back in 2014, I read and reviewed a trilogy by Irene N. Watts called Escape from Berlin. The first book, Good-bye, Marianne, tells the story of Marianne Kohn, 11, a young Jewish girl living in Berlin, with her mother. Her father has been missing since before Kristallnacht and her mother is working in an orphanage. It was through her work there that Marianne was able to secure a last minute place on the Kindertransport.

Seeking Refuge is the graphic form of the second book in the trilogy, which is called Remember Me, and picks up where Good-bye, Marianne leaves off.  Marianne has just arrived in London, where she is sent to live with the very wealthy and very snobbish Mr. and Mrs. Abercrombie Jones. Mrs. Abercrombie Jones immediately changes her name to Marianne* to Mary Ann, gives her a small room in the servants quarters and has her helping out around the house. Luckily, Marianne is allowed to go to school where she makes a friend named Bridget O'Malley. But when the two girls come up with a plan to find a someone who will sponsor Marianne's mother so she can also leave Germany for England, Mrs. Abercrombie Jones finds out and puts a stop to it, angry that she has been humiliated in front of her friends. Once the war begins, however, Marianne is evacuated out of London with the rest of her school and away from the Mrs. Abercrombie Jones.

From London, Marianne finds herself in Wales, but has a hard time finding a family that wants her. Finally, she finds herself in the home of a couple who have recently lost their daughter and expect Marianne to take her place - almost literally. When that doesn't work out, she is taken to another place, where she is met with a wonderful surprise.

I am a big fan of graphic novels. They are very appealing to reluctant readers and can be used in classrooms to supplement social studies classes. They are fast to read and don't require the kind of time as would a novel. Of course, that means that the graphic novel has to be done well, since it must convey the same information as a novel using a combination of words and illustration.

For that reason, I was very apprehensive about recommending Seeking Refuge at first. Even though I had read the novel, I was a little lost. I think I was a little put off by the fact that the illustrations are done in shades of gray and white, and that there is absolutely no other colors throughout. Ironically, for years whenever I thought about Nazi Germany and WWII, I thought about it in shades of gray. as though the sun never shone throughout the war and the Holocaust. Yet, the more I thought about what I was reading, the more I realized that here was a graphic novel that had actually succeeded in getting the story across and that the illustrations were perfect for the subject matter.

Both Watts and Shoemaker have created a story that really manages to convey the fear, the tension, the unease of a refugee arriving in a country where she is not really welcomed by everyone, and even looked down on by some. No one takes into consideration how a 11 year old girl might feel having just left her family behind in a dangerous place, never knowing if she will see them again, knowing no one in the foreign country that she was sent to for safety and not really understanding the language that well. It's pretty daunting, when you think about it. And hopefully, this is a book that will get young readers thinking, particularly in a time when we are seeing refugees seeking a safe place only to have the welcome mat pulled out from under them.

I did discover that an earlier graphic novel was published some years ago that tells the first story in the Escape from Berlin trilogy called Goodbye, Marianne which I know is still available but I haven't read it yet. I did think that Seeking Refuge stands on its own, but I would like to read the first graphic novel someday.

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

*In German, the final e has a soft uh sound, as in Emma