Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen

It's February 1942 and Meg Kenyon, 12, is living on her Grandmère's farm with her French mother in Nazi occupied France. She hasn't seen her English-born dad since he left in May 1940 after receiving a telegram from London and Meg believes he has been imprisoned by the Nazis, if he is even still alive. Before he left, he created a jar full of coded messages for her to solve - deciphering each other's coded messages was something they both enjoyed doing. Now, however, there was only one message left and Meg has been putting off solving it. 

Meg has also been selling some of the vegetables from Grandmère's farm on the black market while secretly working for the resistance. When she unscrambles a message from them that reads Follow the German, Meg knows just who that is - newly arrived Lieutenant Becker, friendly upfront, cold-blooded underneath. And unfortunately, he now knows Meg's face now, after he figures out she was following him.

But Lieutenant Becker is temporarily forgotten about when Meg gets home and finds a badly wounded British officer, Captain Henry Stewart, in the barn, who claims to know Meg's father. After much sneaking around to help Captain Stewart, it turns out that he was on a rescue mission which he can no longer carry out. That's not all Meg discovers - it seems her mother has been working as a secret radio operator for the resistance. 

It turns out that the rescue mission Captain Stewart parachuted into France to carry out involved three Germans, Albert, Liesel, and Jakob, posing as a family named Durand. Since Captain Stewart is too injured to carry out his mission, it is decided that Meg would lead the Durands to Spain and safety. Before she leaves, she is given a note from her father that Captain Stewart delivered, written in coded language. The next day Meg finds the Durands hiding in a cave where she also finds Captain Stewart's backpack full of spy paraphernalia and a warning not let anyone see what's in it. Fortunately, Meg was told that there are resistance workers along the way who are aware of the mission and can provide some assistance, but for the most part, the four are on their own. 

As if their journey weren't difficult enough, Lieutenant Becker is on Meg's trail, suspecting her of resistance work. And just as they get to the point where they should head to Spain, Meg solves her father's message and insists they go to Switzerland instead. But why? And why would he say not to trust one of the "Durands" and which one?

Rescue is an exciting book, full of mystery, intrigue, danger, and betrayal. It's the kind of book my today self thinks is at time preposterous yet I know my 11/12-year-old-self would have hung on every word and every moment of danger. But my today self also knows that codes and ciphers were very popular during WWII, so it isn't surprising that Meg and her dad have their fun with them. Would I let a 12-year-old do what Meg is asked to do? Not a chance, but during the war, kids did this and more. 

Captain Stewart was part of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), as was Meg's father, and he arrived in France with his bag of spy tools, including a spy manual, which Meg refers to often. I liked that Nielsen used the rules from the book for some of her chapter headings. Since they worked in so well with what happens in the chapters they head, I suspect it was a made up book, but fun nevertheless. 

Nielsen has included a section called Secret Codes at the end of the novel for readers intrigued by them that includes all kinds of different codes they can try. I was one of those geeky kids who loved codes and secret languages growing up and still have a fascination for them.* There is also a section called The Special Operations Executive for readers unfamiliar with this organization created by Winston Churchill in 1940. 

Rescue is an exiting book that should appeal to anyone who likes historical fiction about WWII that includes plenty of adventure and danger.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+

This book was an eARC gratefully received from Edelweiss+

*I'm pretty sure my fascination with codes and coding is how I ended up in Information Technology, creating programs and teaching kids and adults about computers.  

The Book of Lost Names, a Novel by Kristin Harmel

I don't usually review adult novels on this blog, with the exception of mysteries, which are my guilty pleasure, but I found the description of this book intriguing enough to get it from the library. The author, Kristin Harmel, has written a number of books set in WWII and I suspect I will be reading more of them. The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the French Resistance, and the artistically talented people who used their skills to forge life-saving documents. 

It's 2005, and 86-year-old Eva Taube Abrams is still working in a Winter Park, Florida library when she reads an article about a German librarian, Otto Kühn, who is trying to return books that were looted by the Nazis towards the end of WWII to their rightful owners, or at least their families. What catches Eva's eye is a picture of a book called Epitres et Evangiles, a book she hasn't seen in over sixty years. She immediately makes a plane reservation to fly to Berlin and find Otto Kühn to get her book back.

Flashback to July 1942. The Nazi occupation of France has brought out a lot of anti-Semitism among the French, and now roundups of Jews are starting. Before her father is taken away by the Nazis, he tells Eva to visit his employer who will provide her with forged documents he has already paid for. But Monsieur Goujon only gives her all the materials she needs to forge her own documents. 

The forgeries, though not perfect, work and before long, Eva and her mother are on their way to Aurignon,  a small village in France's free zone. It doesn't take long for Eva's papers to be recognized as forgeries, but luckily it is by a member of the French Resistance. Soon, she finds herself in a secret library within the town's Catholic church, working with fellow forger Rémy Duchamp and creating documents for fleeing Jews and RAF pilots who need to get back to Britain.  

But when it came to forging documents for unaccompanied escaping Jewish children, Eva is adamant about preserving their real identity somehow. That way, if they survive the war, they can know who they really are. At first, Rémy is just as adamant about not keeping a record, but, afraid of losing Eva's forging talents, he works up a code that allows the names of the children to be hidden in a book called Epitres et Evangiles. 

There is definitely an attraction between Eva and Rémy, though neither acts on it, and Eva believes he was killed after the Aurignon resistance is betrayed. 

I can't say I was emotionally swept up in The Book of Lost Names, but I certainly did enjoy reading it enough that I finished it in one sitting.  It's clear that Hamel has done her research and put together an exciting tale of resistance and survival, and, lost love. It is a story based on a newspaper article in the NY Times about how the Germans were trying to find the owners of books stolen by the Nazis that Harmel read. I always find this slice of reality gives a story a real feeling of authenticity. 

The story goes back and forth between past and present, and one of the things I found interesting is that the present is narrated by older Eva, while there is an omniscient narrator for the past. Eva is such a realistic protagonist. She embodies all the fear, desperation, doubt, and courage of a young women caught in a life and death struggle to save herself and her mother, always believing that her father will one day come back to them. 

Two things I didn't like about this book were 1- Eva's mother, whose bitterness and anger didn't help Eva in her struggle to keep them out of Nazi hands; and 2- a few too many coincidences and close calls that probably wouldn't have happened under Nazi occupation.

Nevertheless, I would still definitely recommend this book for teens and adults.

You can find a reading guide for The Book of Lost Names courtesy of the publisher, Simon & Shuster, HERE

This book is recommended for readers age 15+

This book was borrowed from the NYPL

The Paper Girl of Paris by Jordyn Taylor

In this novel told in alternating voices, one in the present, one is the past, the lives of two teenage girls have interesting parallels. 

No one was more surprised than 16-year-old New Jersey native Alice Prewitt to discover she had inherited an apartment in Paris' 9th Arrondissement from her beloved Gram, Chloe. Surprised because it is an apartment that had oddly never ever been mentioned, not to Alice, nor to Gram's daughter, Alice's mother. And it's not just any apartment, as Alice, her mom and dad discover, but what turns out to be a virtual time capsule of her Gram's family from the 1930s and 1940s. And the surprises don't stop there.

Going through some old photos in the apartment, Alice discovers that her Gram also had a sister named Adalyn Bonhomme that no one knew about. But why had Gram never mentioned a sister or the at-one-time-so-elegant apartment? Returning to the apartment a few days later to do more exploring, Alice is excited to find Adalyn's diary which she had begun on May 30, 1940. Writing about the Nazi occupation of France, Adalyn sounds ready to resist however she can.  But when Alice finds some magazine clippings with happy pictures of Adalyn dressed in high fashion and partying and a newspaper photo to her sitting in an expensive restaurant with six men wearing Nazi armbands, she finds her discoveries hard to process. Could Adalyn have been a Nazi collaborator? 

Yet, the deeper Alice digs into the lives of the Bonhomme family during the war, the clearer a picture of a dysfunctional family emerges. Adalyn and Chloe's father is a WWI veteran who suffers from PTSD, has basically withdrawn from life, and everyone must tiptoe around him so as not to upset him. Their mother is the image of privilege, buying costly rationed items on the black market, and attending society parties. The two sisters are very close, but as Adalyn's wartime resistance activities increase, she worries that Chloe's outspokenness and her distain for the Nazis will jeopardize the family. Meanwhile, she finds herself very attracted to Luc who is the leader of her resistance group, and who doesn't seem to feel the same attraction for Adalyn.

Alice's family is just as dysfunctional. The family tiptoes around Alice's mother's depression.  It's understandable that she would be depressed after just losing her mother, and then discovering the Paris apartment was left to her daughter instead of her, but it's also clear she has been depressed off and on Alice's whole life. I thought her father was kind of passive, content to wait out his wife's depressions, not wanting to upset her and waiting for her to ask for help, which she never does. As Alice says her "family's first language is small talk" so important issues are never addressed. Sadly, he doesn't seem to see what this is doing to Alice. Alice retreats to a cafe to do her family research,where she meets her love interest Paul, a student and aspiring artist. 

I really wanted to like The Paper Girl of Paris more than I did. But I felt there was just too much going on and it began to feel chaotic. I would have loved a story about Adalyn, her family and her resistance work. I really liked all of the historical elements in Adalyn's part of the story and how the diary gives a nice picture of life, which is then expanded in Adalyn's own narration. I think that these two things easily could have been presented without Alice's intervention.

So I'm sorry to say that I could have lived without Alice's story all together. She just wasn't as compelling a character as Adalyn. I thing Alice's story would make a nice novel about a contemporary girl dealing with a passive father and depressed mother. Her character turns the book into something of a mystery that needs solving, but it could have just as easily unfolded with that. I just felt that in The Paper Girl of Paris, she added nothing beyond being a plot device to get to Adalyn's more interesting story and her narration felt intrusive.   

Should you read The Paper Girl of Paris? Yes, if you like historical fiction wrapped in a mystery. 

This book is recommended for readers age 13+

This book was borrowed from the Queens Public Library

Blue Skies by Anne Bustard

It's 1948 and the war has been over for three years, but not for 11-year-old Glory Bea Bennett. She's been hoping for a miracle - that her beloved MIA father, who was last seen alive storming Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944 and is now presumed dead, will someday still come home. And it looks like Glory Bea is going to get her miracle...at least that's what she thinks.

Grateful to the United States for helping to liberate France from Nazi occupation, the French people have are sending 49 boxcars* on what is called the Merci Train, all filled with gifts for the United States. And one of those boxcars is going to travel through and briefly stop at Glory Bea's small town of Gladiola, Texas. Slowly, as the town begins to prepare a celebration for the train's arrival, Glory Bea allows herself to become more and more convinced that her dad will be on that boxcar stopping on Valentines Day, which also happens to be her parent's wedding anniversary. She's sure just wants to surprise her and her mom. After all, why else would the Merci Train stop in Gladiola, and wouldn't it be just like her dad to plan a big surprise like that? she thinks.

There's only one problem - now her dad's best Army buddy, Randall Horton, has arrived in town to visit with the Bennett family and Glory Bea is not happy about the fact that he is spending a lot of  time with her mother, laughing, going out, and just enjoying each other's company. Angry and resentful, it seems the more Glory Bea tries to make his visit unpleasant, the longer Randall stays.

Glory Bea keeps her idea about her dad's return to herself, only telling her best friend Ruby Jane about it. Meanwhile, she begins to prepare for his homecoming, but now it looks like Randall is planning to settle down in Gladiola. Well, once her dad is home, her mother will lose all interest in Randall.

But when the Merci Train finally arrives in Gladiola, Glory Bea's miracle is definitely not what she expected.

Blue Skies is an interesting work of historical fiction that really shows the extent to which WWII impacted the lives of those who lived through it long after the fighting ended and that finally by 1949, people were beginning to finally move on with their lives. And while I loved the idea of bringing the Merci Train into the story, I did have a hard time with Glory Bea's holding on to the idea her dad was still alive but just hadn't come home yet for such a long time.

That being said, I still really liked this novel. There's so much going on beside Glory Bea's obsession. Her grandmother is a matchmaker, and she's trying to follow in her footsteps matching Ruby Jane and neighbor Ben Truman, and totally missing Ben's real crush.

An important side story in the book is that of Ben's father who returned from the war a changed man, suffering from PTSD. When Randell Horton arrives in town, and goes to visit Mr. Truman, just being able to talk about the war with someone who was there finally begins his healing, but there's no doubt he has a long road ahead of him.

One of the things I really enjoy when reading historical fiction are the little everyday things that are included, giving the reader a real sense of what life was life for kids back then. For example, the way movies play such a big part in the lives of Glory Bea and Ruby Jane, and the tradition of going to the soda fountain for Dr. Pepper floats afterwards.

Bustard has also really captured the patriotic spirit of places like Gladiola after the war. It's a small, friendly community where everyone knows and look out for each other. This is very evident in the parade that is being planned for the Merci Train's stop there or when Glory Bea and Ben hop on a train without a ticket.

I have to admit that at first I found Glory Bea an annoying, self-centered character, but as I read on I began to feel more empathy for her. I can understand the difficulty of losing a parent that you feel so attached to as a child. It happened to me, and it happened to my Kiddo, and life is hard for a long time. Coming to terms with loss can be a hard, sad journey, but Bustard allows Glory Bea to have her journey her way.

If you have read or are planning to read Blue Skies, you can find a list of interesting resources and links, including an Educator's Guide, HERE. There's even a playlist of songs from that time period (one of my favorite things is an author's playlist for historical fiction).

If you are looking for a compelling middle grade book about WWII and its aftermath, you can't go wrong with Blue Skies.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was gratefully received from the publisher, Simon & Schuster

* There were 49 Merci boxcars in all - one for each state and a 49th for the District of Columbia and Hawaii to share. The Merci train, also called the French Gratitude Train, was sent as a thank you not only for America's part in the liberation of France, but also for the more than 700 boxcars of much needed supplies on The American Friendship Train sent to France in 1947.

Village of Scoundrels written and illustrated by Margi Preus

It's December 1942, and Inspector Perdant has just arrived in the small mountain village of Les Lauzes, located in southeastern Vichy France, and not far Switzerland's border. Officially, Perdant's job is to "maintain positive relationships with the locals," but unofficially, he understands his job is "to identify evidence of illegal activities and unregistered Jews, foreigners, communists, and undesirables." (pg 38)

No sooner does Perdant settle in than he takes an immediate dislike of the teenagers who sled at high speeds through the village's main street at night. And as Perdant begins to observe the comings and goings of village residents, he becomes increasingly suspicious of these teens, convinced that they are up to something and there are Jews sheltering among them and that the villagers are in on it. 

And indeed, Perdant's suspicions are correct. In the center of Les Lauzes is a high school that is "meant to 'promote peace and international unity' and attracts teens from all over France, many of whom live in different boardinghouses in the village. Les Lauzes is a village full of secrets, and these teens attending school are part of that. Living in a boardinghouse named Sunnyside is an expert Jewish forger of documents, ration books, and identity cards who turned himself into Jean-Paul Filon, 17, and whose base of operations is the barn of Monsieur Mousset, a farmer. Jean-Paul often works with siblings Sylvie and Léon. Into Jean-Paul's life comes Jules, a 10-year-old goatherd who knows the mountains around Les Lauzes better than anyone and who offers his services as a delivery boy of forgeries.

Then there is red-headed Philippe, a Boy Scout with survival training, who escorts people escaping the Nazis through the mountains and across the Swiss border. Not well known among the teens, Philippe sleeps by day, and travels by night. Celeste, a wealthy girl from Paris, thinks she is too scared to be of any help to the resistance until she is asked to take a risky trip to deliver a message for the maquis.

In mid-December, the Gestapo arrive in Les Lauzes, taking up residence in a hotel right next to the Beehive, as boardinghouse with twenty children living there, most of them Jewish, including teenage Henni, as is the director of that residence. Most of the  children there, including Henni, were released from Gurs, a concentration camp in southwestern France.

This is a character driven story and is told from alternating points of view, including Pendant. The characters are all based on actual people, with the exception of Jules. One of the things I liked is the inclusion of a mystery woman with a limp who carries a suitcase around with her and sometimes herds the goats. The implication is that she is Virginia Hall, an American spy. I also feel that the village of Les Lauzes is itself a character in its own right, and is based on the real village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

And into this mix of characters, Margi Preus weaves a fictionalized story of resistance, courage, cleverness, community, and danger, all of it based on real people and true events in the face of Nazi occupation. What makes the resistance activity work is that nearly everyone in the community is involved, including ordinary citizens, pastors, farmers, teachers, families, and of course, the teens, just as it was in reality.

Preus has included a Pronunciation Guide of names and places used, and back matter includes an extensive Bibliography. But most interesting of all is her Epilogue. Here she documents the actual people that her characters are based on and what happened to them after the war, as well as information about the actual places included in the book.

There are illustrations done by the author, but I read an EARC and never saw the final art so I don't feel I can comment of them. That aside, Village of Scoundrels is an exciting, well-written work of historical fiction about a different aspect of the French Resistance.

This book is recommended for readers age 11+
This book was an EARC gratefully received from NetGalley

Catherine's War by Julia Billet, illustrated by Claire Fauvel

**Contains Spoilers**

It's 1942 and Rachel Cohen, a Jewish teen, has been enrolled in the progressive Sèvres Children's Home just outside Paris for four months. It's also been months since she heard anything from her parents and has no idea where they are or what may have happened to them. Luckily, she loves being part of Sèvres, and is convinced that the kind husband and wife who run it, Penguin and Seagull, are part of the French resistance. Thanks to Penguin, Rachel has found an interest in and has a talent for taking photographs and he has lent her a Rolleiflex camera, and has even taught her how to develop the photos she takes.

But as the Nazi stronghold in France tighteneds, and Jews are required to wear yellow stars, the heads of  Sèvres refuse to force that on their Jewish students. Instead, the students are asked to change their names to ones that are more Christian sounding and are given false identity papers. Rachel becomes Catherine Colin.

But when the Nazis begin rounding up Jews, it becomes clear that Sèvres is no longer safe for its Jewish students, even with false papers, and plans are made for the students to be spread around France for their safety. Catherine alias Rachel is sent to a convent in Riom with a younger student named Alice, but not before she is gifted the school's precious Rolleiflex camera by Seagull, who tells her to take photos of everything she sees as testimony after the war.

In Riom, Catherine is forced to eat pork, take catechism classes and communion in order to keep her cover. Taking photos proves to be the thing that helps her through. Then, in town to get her photos developed, she meets Étienne, who lets her use his darkroom. Catherine and Étienne are strongly attracted to each other, but when the convent is reported to the Nazis, it is time for Catherine and Alice to move on.

Over the course of the Nazi occupation of France, Catherine and Alice are sent to a small farm in Limoges, then an orphanage in the Pyrenees, where she and Alice go their separate ways, and finally to another small farm. But when France is finally liberated by the Allies, Catherine returns to Paris, where she hopes to find her parents. Instead she finds their apartment trashed and no information about what happened to them. But she is able to reconnect with Seagull, Penguin, and Alice. In 1945, she is finally able to become Rachel Cohen again. Rachel now finds there is a great deal of interest in the photographs she had taken all through her travels during the Nazi occupation and is offered a show in an art gallery. And finally, she and Étienne also reconnect, and yes, they eventually marry and move to the United States.

Catherine's War is based on the real life experiences of the author's mother as a Jewish teen in France during WWII. It is a powerful coming of age story that interrogates questions of identity during a time of crisis, when who one is was all that the Nazis needed to arrest and send you away, often never to be heard from again, like Rachel's parents.

This is one of the best graphic novels I've read in a while. The story's text is clear, straightforward, and succinct, thanks to the excellent translation from the French by Ivanka Hahnenberger. Text and panels harmonize completely, making Rachel's story easy to follow despite so many characters and places. In her ink and watercolor panels, artist Claire Fauvel captures the differing emotions of the characters - fear, anger, happiness, loneliness, kindness - remarkably well, so that nothing is missed and there is no ambiguity. She used a palette of subtle dark grays, blues, and browns, which touches of brighter colors throughout. These dark colors reflect the dark times in which the story takes place.

When I was in college and living in the East Village in the early 1980s, I used to have an old Minolta SRT 101, that I absolutely adored. I also had a pen and ink drawing of it with the words "It's All in the Focus" written in the lens that a friend made for me. I learned a lot about life through my camera's lens, especially when the Aids crisis hit the village so hard then. For me, there is no question as to the power of art to bear witness and convey truth. I think this idea is brought to bear in an important conversation between Rachel and Étienne. He prefers portrait and landscapes while Rachel prefers more candid, in-the-moment daily life shots. The question becomes whose camera tells the greatest truth or do they both, but in different ways? Something to think about.

Back matter includes a map of Rachel's travels between 1942 and 1945, as well as some of the real photos taken by the author's mother, Tamo Cohen. There are also four pages of questions from readers with the author's answers.

Catherine's War is a story, as Julia Billet writes, "that reminds us that even when the wolves are howling death at your door, there are women and men who are still faithful to mankind." So, while this could be classified as a Holocaust story, it is also a resistance/survivor story. Either way, it is a graphic novel not to be missed.

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

White Bird, a Wonder Story written and illustrated by R.J. Palacio, inked by Kevin Czap

**May Contain Spoilers**

If you have already read R.J. Palacio's book Wonder, than you might remember 10-year-old Julian, the boy who bullied Auggie and made his life so difficult. Well, every bully has a reason for being like that and so R.J. wrote The Julian Chapter to help readers understand him. And if you've also read The Julian Chapter, you may remember his Grandmére telling him about her experience in WWII, hiding from the Nazis. Well, now White Bird, done in graphic format, expands that story and you won't want to miss it.

Given a school assignment to interview someone he knows for his humanities class, Julian, in a video chat with his Grandmére in France, asks if she would tell him again about the boy named Julien who saved her life during the Nazi occupation of France. As Grandmére begins her story, the novel flashback to that time. Living in Paris with her mother, a math teacher, and father, a renowned surgeon, Sara Blum is a happy, friendly Jewish girl, not very good a math, but very artistic. In school, Sara has been sitting next to a boy named Julien for years, but has never spoken to him. Julien had been stricken with polio and now walks with crutches. Nicknamed Tourteau because of crab-like gait, he is the subject of some pretty cruel treatment, especially by the school bully and Nazi sympathizer, Vincent.

After France falls to the Nazis in 1940, little by little life becomes difficult for French Jews, but Sara and her family live in the free zone (Vichy France - no explanation about this in the text) and they believe they are relatively safe. That is, until the winter 1943, when the Nazis begin roundups. As the Jewish children in Sara's school are rounded up one day and taken away by the Nazis, Sara is able to escape and hide in the unused bell tower. Which is where Julien finds her before the Nazis do (but how did he know she was there?) and sneaks her out through the city sewers, taking her to his family's barn, where she can hide in the hayloft.

Sara remains hiding in the hayloft until the end of the war with the help of Julien and his parents, hiding from nosy neighbors who are believed to support the Nazis, and knowing she will probably never see her parents again.

White Bird is Palacio's debut graphic novel and the graphic format worked for me because I know kids like them and there's a good chance they will read this book. I also like a well-done comic. It doesn't bother me that the panels aren't perfectly lined up and I prefer the inking to be done is soft colors rather that bold garish colors for this targeted age group.  The novel is divided into three parts that take place when Sara is in hiding and after the war, plus a prologue and epilogue in the present day, and each is introduced with a relevant quote by people like George Santayana, Anne Frank, and Muriel Rukeyser. 

So, while I do feel that White Bird is a very worthwhile book when I first read it, a second reading revealed some flaws. As with her other Wonder books, the real agenda of White Bird is to extend the message of kindness, as Julien's mother tells Sara: "In these dark times, it's those small acts of kindness that keep us alive, after all. They remind us of our humanity." But, with this message in mind, it must be very difficult to find a balance of what to reveal and what to not include when writing a Holocaust story. My feeling about White Bird is that it a book full of good intentions, a book about resistance and courage, that carries an important message for today's world, given the rise of nationalism, but doesn't quite find this delicate balance.

This makes it a somewhat flawed novel. Sara lived in a barn's hayloft and yet no Nazis ever demanded to search it, as they did in reality, looking for hidden Jews. And one only gets a hint at the horror of the Holocaust, as when the Nazis discover what happened to the other Jewish school children and kill the marquisard who was trying to save them (what's a marquisard?) Yes, this is dealt with in the back matter, but how many 10-year-olds look at back matter? What drove me really crazy is the Sara was such a passive character. She did nothing to help herself, Julien's family, or the resistance. Maybe I've read too many books where the Jewish protagonist acts that I've come to expect that kind of resistance action. Sara should have been more of a heroic character, but her passivity precludes her from that.

In the end, though, I would highly recommend this book for middle grade readers. What saves it for me is connecting the events of WWII and the Holocaust to the present day policies towards refugees, as Santayana reminds us: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Back matter does include an Afterword by Ruth Franklin, an Author's Note, a Glossary, a Suggested Reading List, and Organizations and Resources for further research, and a Bibliography.

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

Captain Rosalie by Timothée de Fombelle, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, translated by Sam Gordon

In this short novella, a 5½-year-old girl calls herself Captain Rosalie, thinking of herself as a soldier on a secret mission during WWI, spying on the enemy and preparing her plan of action. And she is sure that one day she will be awarded a medal for what she does.

Living in a small French village, Rosalie is really too young for school, but the teacher, a wounded war veteran, lets her sit quietly drawing in the back of his classroom every day while her father is away fighting in the war and her mother works in the factory for the war effort. Rosalie is given a notebook and pencils with which to draw. But since it contains her plan of action, she never, never leaves the notebook where it can be found.

At night, her mother reads letters from her father at the front, a father she has almost no memory of. Instead of writing about war, he writes about what they will do when the war is over, but Rosalie refuses to listen to her mother reading the letters. 

Then one night, after Rosalie is in bed, there's a knock and she hears her mother speaking to the gendarme. The next day, there's a blue envelope on the table with a letter her mother doesn't read to her, nor is she able to look at her daughter. Rosalie knows something has changed, and her mission now becomes even more imperative.

Finally, on a day in February, it's time for Rosalie to carry out her secret mission. But first she must convince the teacher to let her go home to get her notebook. She is finally allowed to go, but is accompanied by Edgar, there only student who has ever noticed Rosalie. In the kitchen, Rosalie finds a box containing the letters from her father and her secret mission becomes apparent - Rosalie hasn't been drawing at the back of the classroom, she has been learning to read with the other students. And now, she can read the letters from her father well enough to realize they are about the horrors of war, not about what they will do when he comes home. But one letter, the last on brought by the gendarme, is missing.

Now, Rosalie will have to come up with another plan to find that letter and learn the final truth that has been withheld from her. Luckily, Edgar is just the kind of friend who will help her accomplish her mission.

Captain Rosalie is a beautifully crafted novella that is at once heartbreaking and hopeful. There are no unnecessary words or wasted actions and yet it packs such a strong emotional reaction. de Fombelle brilliantly holds the mystery of Rosalie's secret mission until it is time to reveal it, yet upon rereading, I noticed subtle hints. Narrated by Rosalie, author de Fombelle and translator Gordon never lose the voice of a 5½-year-old as she plans her mission and closely watches the world around her. Her realistic voice is even there when she is reading the letters from her father, not knowing all the words, but knowing enough to understand what her father is saying.

Interestingly, while her mother made up letters that she thought would make Rosalie's father more real for her daughter, and ignoring the truth of what he actually wrote, this only served to make Rosalie more distant from him and inspired her to learn to read. And, it doesn't take much to figure out that the gendarme brought news that Rosalie's father was killed in action. But that isn't what the story is about. It is about adults telling kids the truth so that they don't have to find it out for themselves.

Arsenault's spare watercolor, pencil and ink illustrations are done in cold, barren winter grays and whites, with only touches of color - red hair for Rosalie, her mother, and her ally Edgar, and the flames of a fire, and the blue of the envelopes and letters from Rosalie's father add to the feeling of life and hope in the midst of death and despair.

If Captain Rosalie sounds familiar, it is because it was originally published in an anthology called The Great War: Stories Inspired by Items From the First World War. The stand alone version of Captain Rosalie will be available on June 11, 2019.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley and Candlewick Press

A Kingdom Falls (Book 3 of the Ravenmaster Trilogy) by John Owen Theobald

When last we left Anna Cooper and her boyfriend Timothy Squire, it was June 5, 1944 and the D-Day invasion was about to begin. Timothy and his friend Arthur Lightfoot, both sappers, are on their way to France with orders to disarm bridges wired by the Nazis so that the Allies could pass over them safely when they arrive. Book 3 begins the very next day - June 6, 1944.

Anna, still in London, has learned that the father, Wilhelm Esser, she believed to be dead, has had a big hand in developing Hitler's Vengeance Bombs, or V2 bombs that are so fast and powerful, there is no escaping or surviving them. After her father gives her the information about how the bombs work, and where they are being sent from, Anna decides to hide her father in the Tower of London, her official home.

But having the information about the bombs doesn't mean anyone will listen to Anna. Especially after an not after she loses her pilot's licensee and is stripped of her wings. Anna may have been grounded but her fellow pilots in the ATA aren't and their commander, Pauline Gower, isn't above turning a blind eye on the use of Spitfires with which Anna and her friends can practice dive bombing under the tutelage of Joy Brooks. Joy, you will remember, is an African American pilot who couldn't fly for the Untied States, but was welcomed into the ATA. And, oh yes, Anna manages to get some wings and papers to fly, just maybe not her own.

Meanwhile, Timothy Squire and the other men in D-Company are in France, but not where they should be, landing in a swampy river and losing most of their equipment and a few men. Eventually, Timothy and Arthur get separated when they are attacked by Germans, and Timothy is sure Arthur has been killed. Timothy is eventually found by a group of French partisans and spends the rest of the war fighting with them.

When his family receives notice that Timothy is missing in action, Anna never loses faith that he is alive and will return to her.

A Kingdom Falls is an exciting third novel. There is perhaps more action both on the battlefield and at home in it than in the previous novels as the war draws to a conclusion, but that would be expectable. And readers should never lose sight of the fact that Anna and Timothy are still just teenagers. But war matures young people fast, and Theobald has taken that into consideration as he developed his characters. It may not be quite as obvious with Anna and Timothy, but is sure is with Anna's friend Florence Swift. In These Dark Wings, Flo spent the blitz in Canada, learning about comics and ice cream. She returned to England in What the Raven Brings, but it is in A Kingdom Falls Flo decides to become a nurse in France, and you can see how she has changed.

One of the things I liked about The Ravenmaster Trilogy is that Theobald writes from different points of view, and in A Kingdom Falls readers knows just what is happening to tow more familiar characters, including pilot Cecil Rafferty, rich, handsome, but rejected by Anna, and, of course, Flo. The switching of point of view throughout is not the least bit confusing and really adds to the excitement and tension of the novel. I have to confess that I secretly wanted to hear directly from Anna father, the Nazi Will Esser. I really wondered what he would have to say, but readers learn much from his through his interactions with Anna.

I am sorry to have to say good-bye to Anna and Timothy now that the trilogy has come to and end, but I was glad that Theobald brought it all to a very satisfying conclusion.

A Kingdom Falls, and in fact, all three books in The Ravenmaster Trilogy, offer an exciting window into many aspects of World War II and how it impacted the lives of young people. Theobald handles themes of war, friendship, loyalty, love, betrayal and survival in the lives of his characters realistically through his engaging narrators. I can't recommend this trilogy more.

This book is recommended for readers age 11+
This book was sent to me by the author, John Owen Theobald

The Paris Spy (a Maggie Hope Mystery #7) by Susan Elia MacNeal

When last we left Maggie Hope, her college friend Sarah Sanderson and her old boyfriend Hugh Thompson, both now Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents, were preparing to go to France to work undercover, while Maggie was excitedly expecting her newly discovered half sister, Elise Hess, to arrive in London from Germany.

It is now June 1942 when The Paris Spy opens and France has be under German occupation since June 1940 and the Nazis have quite comfortably ensconced themselves in Paris, enjoying the finer things the city has to offer. 

Sarah and Hugh, code named Sabine Severin and Hubert Taillier respectively, have also arrived in Paris, she as a dancer, he as a cellist to work undercover as part of a Paris ballet company. Their assignment is to collect a bag of sand sample SOE agent Erica Calvert had collected from the beaches of Normandy, France, in preparation for the proposed invasion and it is imperative that those sample not get into the hands of the Nazis. 

Maggie has also arrived in Paris hoping for discover what happened to her half sister. Elise never showed up in London, as planned.

More importantly, however, she is there to try to discover what happened to SOE agent Erica Calvert - is she dead? Alive? Compromised? Her radio transmittals have been coming through to England but without the required security check. And what about her sand samples? 

After months of waiting in the home of two resistance workers, Maggie has finally received her forged identity papers, becoming Paige Kelly from Ireland, in Paris to shop for her trousseau. Ireland was neutral during the war and so Maggie is free to move around as she pleases. She immediately checks into the Hôtel Ritz, now headquarters for the German Luftwaffe, and home to designer Coco Chanel, who in reality did live there for 37 years, including the war years, and who immediately befriends Maggie, who just happens to be wearing a Chanel suit when they meet.

And to add to the danger of simply operating in an occupied area, the Nazis seem to know exactly who the SOE agents are and what they are doing in France, which can only mean one thing - there is a mole in SOE. But who can it be? And will Maggie find out before all the SOE agents’ lives are put in jepardy?

There is a lot going on inThe Paris Spy. There’s mystery and intrigue mixed with the really odd glamour that was Paris after the Nazis arrived. MacNeal has really captured the two sides of the German officers who were running operations there. On the surface, they demanded the finer things associated with France - lots of champagne, the finest foods, and the best accommodations. Below the surface, the level of physical and mental cruelty is stunning. 

And in-between is Coco Chanel. Chanel has long been suspected of being a Nazi collaborator. MacNeal’s depiction of her is ambiguous at best, and it is up to the reader to decide whether or not she is a Nazi spy, or a double agent in The Paris Spy. Of course, there is the whispered comment Chanel made to Maggie on page 245…   

I personally felt this was a particularly interesting novel. Although Maggie has rubbed shoulders with all kinds of big players from WWII - from the Queen and Winston Churchill to President and Mrs. Roosevelt, among others -  I felt like this was a more thought provoking story and not just a good historical fiction mystery. Not because Maggie, Sarah, or Hugh have changed, but there was more of an insider’s look into how and why things were done and events that unfolded in it. 

The Paris Spy is sure to please fans of Maggie and, aside from maybe not totally understanding how Elise Hess comes into the picture, it can be read as a stand alone historical fiction novel, not just as part of a mystery series.

I am now eagerly looking forward to Maggie Hope #8

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

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.

The Bicycle Spy by Yona Zeldis McDonough

It's November 1942, and Marcel Christophe, 12, has one dream - to ride in the famous bike race the Tour de France when he gets older.  For now, though, he must be content with practicing on his bicycle, riding to school and delivering bread to customers of his parents' bakery.  The race has been cancelled since the Nazis began occupying northern France in 1940, but Marcel knows it will be back after the war is over.  Now, however, the Nazis have also invaded the southern part of France where Marcel lives, making things difficult for everyone.  Not only are there shortages and rationing, but soldiers are stopping people to question where they are going and why.

The first time Marcel is stopped by a guard, his parents want to know all about it.  The next time they ask him to deliver bread to his aunt and uncle. his mother gives him some pain d'epice (gingerbread) to offer to the guard if he is stopped again.  Sure enough, the guard is there, and more than willing to let Marcel go by in exchange for the gingerbread.  Afterwards, Marcel decides to slice off a little of the bread to eat and discovers a note written by his father baked into it.  Suddenly, Marcel realizes he has been making a lot more bread deliveries these past few weeks, but why?  Stunned, Marcel realizes his parents are in the resistance and his is delivering messages for them.  Realizing the danger for everyone concerned, he decides to keep this to himself.

Meanwhile, at school, there is a new girl named Delphine Gilette  who is not only a very good student, but knows all about the Tour de France thanks to her brother and father's interest in the race. It doesn't take long before she and Marcel become fast friends, riding their bikes together, playing together and doing homework.  But just as Marcel has a secret, so does Delphine and when a boy in their class discovers a revealing photograph in her school satchel, her secret is exposed.  Delphine and her family are Jews from northern France who had traveled to southern France using forged papers when it was still free of Nazis soldiers.  Now, they will need new papers to try to get out of France to safely.

Marcel realizes he must confess to his parents that he knows that they are part of the resistance in order to help his friend escape France.  Luckily, his parents are more than willing to help, but they must send Marcel to a fellow resistance contact on his bicycle.  What should have been a simple trip, however, is anything but.  Everything that could go wrong does, including a flat tire that forces Marcel to trade his beloved bike for a beat up replacement that will take him further from home than he has ever been seeking the right people who can help Delphine and her family get out of France.

But the Nazis have already begun rounding up all the Jews in the area.  Will Marcel make it to his final destination and home again before Delphine and her parents are found and deported?

At first I thought The Bicycle Spy was not going to be a very interesting story, but that quickly changed and it proved to be a very accessible, exciting narrative of courage and friendship.  The language is direct and clear, and terms that might be unfamiliar to readers are defined in the glossary at the back of the book. Told in the third person, Marcel's story unfolds simply and believably.  I say believably because after reading so many stories about the courageous acts of children to help other, I can easily see how this could have happened.

As a protagonist, Marcel is a typical, unassuming 12 year old, who is happy riding his bike, racing his friends, and dreaming about his big Tour de France wins, yet he also seems surprised by his own bravery.  Delphine, a girl who has had to move around because of the Nazis, feels a little more down to earth but the reader will definitely feel her underlying anxiety, even when she appears to be so confident.

I really liked the way Yona Zeldis McDonough managed to keep the tension building slowly right up to the end of the novel, making it a deceptively simple, thought provoking story.  I also like the way she incorporated information about the Nazi occupation of France, WWII and even the Tour de France so easily that it felt like a natural part of the narrative, and not like she was teaching her readers a lesson.

McDonough has also included a short history of WWII, as well as a Timeline, a short history of the Tour de France (something I found very interesting since all I know about this race has to do with the disgraced Lance Armstrong) and books for further reading.

There is much in The Bicycle Spy that will appeal to young readers and for that reason, I highly recommend it to them.

This book is recommended for readers age 8+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Scholastic Press

Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust by Loïc Dauvillier, illustrated by Marc Lizano

When Elsa, 6, discovers her grandmother, Dounia Cohen, crying one night, the little girl convinces her to talk about what's causing her tears.  And so, her grandma begins telling her about her own life when she was Elsa's age living in Paris.

Her best friend was Catherine and they both had a crush on Isaac, and all three went to the same school.  One day, when Dounia came home from school, her father was already there.  He told Dounia there were to become a family of sheriffs and soon a yellow star was sewn onto her clothes.  The next day, Isaac didn't show up for school and Dounia was told to sit in the back of the room, and learned that her star was meant to mark her as Jewish, not a sheriff.

When the police show up at the door one night, Dounia's parents put her into a hiding place and tell her to quietly wait for someone to come and get her.  When her neighbor comes, Dounia learns that her parents had been taken away, and the apartment ransacked.

The neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Péricard, take care of Dounia in secret as long as they can, but eventually they learn that the police are planning a surprise visit to find her.  Dounia's name is changed to Simone Pierret, but before they can get away, someone spots Dounia.  She and Mrs. Péricard make it to the prearranged point for Dounia to be picked up and moved, but now Mrs. Péricard is also in danger and has no idea what happened to her husband.  The two are taken to the farm of an older woman named Germaine by Resistance workers.  Dounia had been told she must think of the Péricards as her parents, and now as Simone, she also becomes a young Catholic girl in order to keep her safe and hidden from the Nazis.

Dounia and Mrs. Péricard remain on the farm for the rest of the war, each wondering what became of their loved ones.

Hidden is the powerful story of a young girl who doesn't completely understand what is happening around her, why people suddenly dislike her and all other Jews so much and, most importantly, the sudden disappearance of so many people including her parents,   How does one deal with this?  Clearly, it took Dounia years to do that, since even her own son didn't know about his mother's experiences in Nazi occupation of France.

How does a young reader who is hearing about the Holocaust for possibly the first time deal with such a disturbing subject?  Clearly, a book about the Holocaust for kids, whether it is a graphic or traditional picture book, requires a very fine balance between story, information, and illustrations so that the story gives just the right amount of age appropriate information, but not so much that you frighten kids.  Hidden is a book that is so powerful in its simplicity, to honest in it telling that it definitely achieves this fine balance.

The translation by Alexis Siegel from the original French into English contains no ambiguities, and the dialogue flows comfortably and naturally.  I seem to be reading graphic novels about World War II and the Holocaust more and more lately, and they seem to be getting better and better.  The illustrations by Marc Lizano are reminiscent of a child's drawing, though the background is more sophisticated.  Still, the faces, even in their simplicity, really manage to convey a wide range of emotions - fear, sadness, anger, kindness, hate, love and ultimately even hope.  And the colorist, Greg Salsedo, really gives the illustrations a sense of the time, place and mood using his color palette.

Dounia's story is similar to that of many children in France.  In fact, in the Afterword, Hellen Kaufmann, president of the AJPN (Association Anonymes, Justes et Persecutés pendant la période nazie) writes that 84% of Jewish children living in France before the war survived because of people like Mrs. Péricard and Germaine and the Resistance workers who found safe homes for them were willing to risk their own lives to hide and protect these children from the Nazis and the collaborating French police.

This book is recommended for readers age 6+
This book was purchased for my personal library

A Bag of Marbles by Joseph Joffo, adapted by Kris, illustrated by Vincent Bailly and translated by Edward Gauvin

After fleeing Russia because of the pogroms there,  Joseph Joffo grandfather and his family settled in Paris and quickly assimilated.  The family grew and prospered.  Jo's father became a successful barber, married and had 4 sons.  But, in 1941, it looks like things are going to get bad in Paris now that the Nazis have taken over the city.

Jo, 10, and his older brother Maurice are forced to wear yellow stars to school, as is every Jew in Paris.  Jo resents it and when a friend offers to trade a bag of marbles for the star, Jo jumps at the chance.  But even without the star, the fact that he and Maurice are Jewish causes a fight in the schoolyard.  Arriving home, bloodied and bruised, their father makes the decision to send the boys to Vichy France, the southern free zone to stay with their older brothers.

Armed with 5,000 francs and the addresses of safe places to find help, the boys are sent on a dangerous journey through occupied France by themselves.  Using only their wits, and sometimes making poor judgements, they travel by train, bus and foot, all the while having to evade the Nazis and occasionally finding a kind person willing to help them.

Yes, they make it to Menton, but the story doesn't end there.  Remember, they left their parents in Paris, who promised they would shortly follow them to Menton.  But, word comes one day that they were picked up by the Nazis and re in an internment camp.  And the boys are themselves picked by the Nazis when they unknowingly enter a resistance center during a raid.  Arrested, they are questioned by the Gestapo and must convince them that they are not Jews despite being circumcised.

Will they succeed and will they be reunited with their parents and be a family once again?

I really wanted to love this graphic story, particularly since there are not that many good ones for kids about WW2, fiction or nonfiction (exceptions are Carla Jablonski's Resistance trilogy, Miné Okubo's early work Citizen 13660, and Lily Renée, Escape Artist by Trina Robbins, to name a few reviewed here).  But I just didn't love it, I only liked it.

And what made me like it was really the artwork.  Graphics don't have a lot of time and space to tell a story, so the reader must rely on the illustrations to help carry it along.  And Vincent Bailly's colorful, detailed watercolor illustrations really do just that, and along the way they impart exactly what the characters are feeling at any given point - happiness, sadness, fear, anger, pleasure.  A quick, simple facial expression says so much here.  Bailly's illustrations are brilliant.    

But alas, at times the story was just dull.  It lacked some of the poignancy you might expect from a story about two young boys sent out into a very dangerous world on a long journey towards safety.  Though I could read what the boys felt by the look on their faces, I never felt those same feelings.  In fact, I never felt any emotional pull in the story and never really connected with Jo and his brother.  I can't help but wonder what the original memoir written by Joseph Joffo back in 1974 was like.  That was a book written for an adult audience, and this version of A Bag of Marbles was rewritten for a younger reader.  Perhaps sometimes was lost in the shuffle.

I kept waiting for the titular bag of marbles to make another appearance in the story but the only part it played was the schoolyard trade and I am still scratching my head over why an obviously not Jewish boy would want the star that Jo was wearing.

On the plus side, there is a very nice map showing the route Jo and Maurice took to safety and their modes of transportation.  There is also a glossary of French words used.  Interestingly, when German is used, the translation is at the bottom of the page.  And there is a nice Afterward that explains what France was like under German occupation.

A Bag of Marbles is a nice book for readers who are really interested in the various experiences of Jews during WW2.  It would be a nice supplemental text for teaching the Holocaust, as well.  It will really appeal to all the kids sitting on the floor in Barnes & Noble across the country after school reading graphic books with their friends (and I don't say to be snarky - those knowledgeable kids have helped me find something I wanted on more than one occasion).

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

Sequential Highway has a very interesting interview with the illustrator Vincent Bailly about working on comics in general and on A Bag of Marbles in particular.

Code Name Pauline: Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent by Pearl Witherington Cornioley, edited by Kathryn J. Atwood

When most of us think special agents, the figure that most often comes to mind is that of James Bond, code name 007, part of the Secret Intelligence Service, or M16.  Bond is fun, but he is nothing like real life.  In reality, being a special agent can leave you cold, wet, dirty, hungry, and sometimes your stuff ends up in a lake when you parachute into an occupied country as you will discover when you read Code Name Pauline.

In a series of interviews, Pearl Witherington Cornioley tells about her life in the SOE, or Special Operations Executive, whose purpose was to "locate, assist, supply and train willing resisters within occupied countries by sending them British-trained agents," (pg xxi) people who could speak the language of the occupied country with native fluency.  The SOE was a top secret organization, so top secret no one in it knew its real name until after the war.

Pearl Witherington Cornioley was a perfect candidate.  Although she was a British citizen, she had been born and raised in Paris and so, naturally she spoke fluent French.   When the Germans began their invasion of France in June 1940, Pearl, her mother and three sisters (her father had already passed away) needed to get out of France and back to England.  It was a long, harrowing seven-month trip, but they luckily received help along the way and arrived back in London in July 1941.

Morally opposed to the occupation of France by the Nazis, Pearl knew she could do more tho help the resistance working in France than doing paperwork for the Air Ministry in England and so she applied to the Inter-Services Research Bureau, which actually turned out to be the SOE, along with an old friend from France, Maurice Southgate, also a Brit.

After a grueling training period and only three practice jumps, Pearl, at the age of 29, parachuted into France in September 1943 disguised as a cosmetics saleswoman.   For the most part engaging in acts of sabotage to slow down and thwart the Nazis, Pearl recounts some of the small every day details of resistance work we don't usually hear about in fiction and about her close calls with the Gestapo where luck was on her side.

Then, when her friend Maurice was captured by the Gestapo and sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Pearl took over the leadership of 3,500 resistance workers and assumed the code name Pauline for the remainder of her time with the Resistance.

Pearl never spoke about her work in France with the Resistance after the war.  She married Henri Cornioley with whom she had been involved even before the war and who she worked with during it,  and lived a relatively quiet life.  In 1994, she and Henri decided to give some interviews to French journalist Hervé Larroque, which were published in French under the name Pauline.  Kathryn Atwood presents this narrative of Pearl's for the first time in English with the publication of Code Name Pauline.

Code Name Pauline is an interesting, exciting memoir about a woman I would love to have met.  Pearl/Pauline is feisty, almost fearless, and very morally principled, but she is also stubborn, as you will discover when you read about why she refused an honor given to her by Britain for her work in the resistance.  Bravo, Pearl!

And because reminiscences aren't always linear, or clear and sometimes digress,  Kathryn Atwood, who first introduced English readers to Pearl's story in her excellent work, Women Heroes of World War II, has written a comprehensive introduction to each chapter and has also included in her back matter a list of key figures, an extensive appendix and chapter notes, all very interesting and useful to the reader.  There is also an insert of photographs of Pearl, her family, her forged documents and, of course, Henri.

Pearl's intention for allowing herself to be interviewed was to hopefully inspire young people and to that end, this is indeed a fascinating book that will appeal to readers interested in WWII history as well as readers interested in women's history and it is most definitely inspirational.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was sent to me by the publisher

Pearl passed away in 2008 at the age of 93.  Obituaries give much additional insight into a person's life and you might like to read Pearl's obituary from The New York Times and The Telegraph

This is book 4 of my 2013 European Reading Challenge hosted by Rose City Reader

Odette's Secrets by Maryann MacDonald

 "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.

Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer

 Black Radishes is another book that is based on the experiences of someone in the author's family during World War II.  This kind of reality-based historical fiction often makes for an exciting, suspenseful story and Black Radishes is no exception.  According to the author's note, Susan Lynn Meyer's father, grandmother and aunt were able to escape from France after its occupation by the Nazis, so she had lots of first hand material to create this stirring novel.

Black Radishes story begins in Paris in March 1940.  As the German army gets closer to France, Gustave Becker, 11, and his parents, French Jews, firmly believe that the Maginot Line, the pride of France's border defense, will be able to hold them as bay.  But even in Paris things are changing and now Gustave is beginning to experience some anti-Semitic feelings among the people there.

But when his parents tell him that they are going to leave Paris while they wait for American visas, moving to a village called Saint-Georges in the Loire Valley, Gustave doesn't want to leave despite the anti-Jewish graffiti and the Nazi's rapid advance in Europe.  And he especially doesn't want to leave his friend Marcel Landeau and his cousin Jean-Paul.

Life in Saint-Georges is dull for Gustave, compared to Paris, with one exception.  On their first Shabbat in Saint-Georges, Gustav is pushed into a fountain by a boy his age when he goes to buy the bread for that important meal, ruining the bread, his pride and any sense of safety Gustav may have felt there.
Meanwhile, the Nazis are rapaciously invading the country and country that spring of 1940 until they finally begin their invasion of France in June.  Gustave's parents decide to leave Saint-Georges and head for the Spanish border.

But even in his father's truck, traveling is slow and difficult, the roads are clogged with so many people heading to the border.  After traveling a few days and not making much progress, the crowd was attacked by Nazi planes machine gunning them.  Gustave's parents decide to return to Saint-Georges.  As luck would have it, when France was divided in occupied and unoccupied territory in the Armistice signed between France and Germany, Saint-Georges was right on the border of the unoccupied area, meaning that Gustave and his family could live in relative safety at least for the present.

In September life settles down, somewhat.  Gustave starts school and discovers that his Shabbat tormentor is in his class.  But he also meets and makes friends with Nicole.  At home, there is nothing much eat because the Nazis take what they want from shops, homes and gardens, leaving little for anyone else.  Gustave's father decides they will cross the border in his truck into occupied France and barter for some food, using the supplies he brought with him from Paris and his own Swiss ID papers.  This works out well for them and they continue to cross the border for the next year and whenever they can, they make sure there a black radishes in view.  They use they as a way to distract the German border guards, who like to eat them with their beer.

In the Fall of 1941, Gustave's mother finally hears from her sister in Paris, who tells them in coded language that things are getting bad for Jews there, that Gustave's friend Marcel and his mother are missing and they want to get away.   Meanwhile, Nicole invites Gustave along for a bike ride to see the famous Chateau de Chenonceau, where her father works.  It is a strange day out for Gustave, but it is the beginning of the part he will play in the French Resistance, along with his father.
How will they ever get Jean-Paul and his family out of Nazi-occupied France and to safety?

Meyer's realistic novel is an interesting coming of age story set in a time when coming of age happened quickly and young.  The reader sees Gustave transformed from a boy who needs to carry his toy Monkey around in his pocket to see safe to a boy who takes dangerous action to do what is right.  I liked that Black Radishes is set in the unoccupied part of France.  So often, stories a set in the occupied part where there was so much more danger, but it is good to see that life wasn't easy in unoccupied France.  Yet, Meyers depicts a very measured amount of violence and anti-Semitism as well as the fear, tension, cold and hunger that people suffered every single day in both parts of France throughout the novel making it an excellent choice for introducing Holocaust topics to young readers.  Word is that Susan Lynn Meyer is writing a companion book which continues Gustave's adventures.

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

Black Radishes has been give the following well deserved honors:

2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Award
2011 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book
2011 Boston Author's Club Highly Recommended Book
2011 Massachusetts Book Award Must Read Finalist
2011 Pennsylvania School Librarians Association Young Adult Top 40 Book
2013 Shortlisted for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award

The Chateau de Chenonceau that plays an important part in Black Radishes

This is book 12 of my Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestry.