Louisa June and the Nazis in the Waves by L. M. Elliott

No sooner had the United States entered World War II than German U-boats began cruising the waters off America's eastern seaboard looking for cargo ships carrying desperately needed supplies to Europe to torpedo. And Hitler's "wolfpack" were very successful. And now, for 13-year-old Louisa June Brookes, living in Tidewater Virginia, the war has really come home.

Her older sister Katie is off to welding school in Newport News and older brothers Will joins the merchant marines and Joe joins the navy. When a crew member becomes ill, her father, a tugboat captain, suggests her brother Butler replace him on a trip pushing barges to Philadelphia. Butler is set to graduate high school and begin studying at the College of William and Mary in the fall and it's a good opportunity to earn money for food and books. Of course, this leaves Louisa June and her mother to take care of their 70 acre farm. 

Louisa's mother has always suffered from bouts of what the family calls "melancholy" which has recently become more serious now that the war has arrived in Tidewater Virginia. It's Louisa's goal to try and get her mother to smile when the melancholy hits, and since this is a literary family, a good story will often do the trick. 

But when tragedy hits the convoy of barges they are pushing, Butler is killed, but  his dad survives. Louisa's mother goes into a full on depression, grieving for Butler. Blaming her husband for his death, and despite the seriousness of his injuries, refusing to allow him back in the house, forcing him to live in the barn.  Luckily, elderly Cousin Belle Archer, who has a few of her own war stories from WWI, is aware of Mama's melancholy, and is only too happy to help Louisa out with food, books and kittens now that running the house and taking care of her parents has become her responsibility. But Louisa wants to do more to help the war effort, like her friend Emmett does, keeping an eye out for Nazis in the waters around the Tidewater. 

On what was supposed to be a fun day out, Louisa and Cousin Belle witness a U-boat attack a convoy of merchant ships out in the Chesapeake Bay while relaxing on the beach at Old Point Comfort. They both immediately spring into action to try to help save some of the men. Before long, however, it becomes a family affair, but will it bring the Brookes family some closure on Butler's death and bring them together again or will it split the family even further apart?

I have always enjoyed reading L. M. Elliott's historical novels and this is no exception. And the German submarines lurking in the waters so close to shore isn't a topic that often makes its way into middle grade novels. The story is narrated in the first person by Louisa, who has quite a way with description. And describe she does - giving the reader not just everyday details about what it was like in those early days of the war, but wonderful details about living in Tidewater Virginia. I could almost hear the cry seagulls and smell the salt water. 

I also felt that Elliott did a great job tackling the subject of Louisa's mother's depression and how it impacts the entire family. I grew up with a mother depressed over the loss of a child and I could completely empathize with Louisa's attempts to try to lift her mother's moods, not realizing (as I didn't) that she really needed professional help. 

Be sure to read the back matter which gives information about some of the topics covers in this book, including German submarines and the merchant marines, kids becoming plane spotter, woman welders like Katie, experiences like Cousin Belle's in WWI, and of course depression. 

Louisa June and the Nzies in the Waves is a wonderful companion to L. M. Elliott's earlier novel Across a War-Tossed Sea and I highly recommend both.

Thank you Edelweiss+ for granting me access to a digital version of this book.

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, 

now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle

On Snowden Mountain by Jeri Watts

It didn't take long once WWII began for 12-year-old Ellen Hollingsworth's father to join the army and go off to fight Hitler in Europe, leaving his daughter to care for their home and her catatonically depressed mother. Now, it's September 1942 and Ellen has run out of money, food, and the kindness of neighbors. Not knowing what else to do, she writes her dreaded, estranged Aunt Pearl about her circumstances and the next thing Ellen knows is that she and her mother  are on a train out of Baltimore heading to the tiny town of Snowden, Virginia at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, to live with her aunt.

It's a whole new world for Ellen, from the lack of electricity and the outhouse at Aunt Pearl's to the small one room school held in an abandoned church. It's there that she meets Russell Armentrout, a boy of about 15 who seldom shows up at school, who still doesn't know his alphabet, and who always smells like skunk. Ellen and Russell take an instant dislike to each other after he calls her mother crazy.

But when Aunt Pearl sends Ellen to the Armentrout home with a basket of food, she witnesses Russell's home, his "beaten down" mother, who used to be Ellen's mother's best friend, and his abusive father. After this incident, Ellen and Russell begin a tension-filled friendship. But as they begin learn the truths about each others home life, a real friendship develops.

Because her father used the war as an excuse to run away, leaving his daughter and depressed wife behind, I decided to review On Snowden Mountain here. It is not a war story per se, but a home front tale that is definitely influenced by the fact of war.

The main theme of this coming-of-age story is the unfolding of Ellen's growth as a person. Ellen arrives at Snowden a judgmental city girl who believes herself to be above the people there and who is determined not to make any friends. But she is also a girl who is plagued with doubts about reaching out to her aunt for help, who fears that she may be prone to the same kind of depression as her mother, and who is angry at her father for leaving her with his responsibilities. But as she learns about her mother's past and witnesses acts of quiet, unpretentious kindness on Snowden Mountain, and in her exchange of letters with her father, Ellen learns to face her fears, and accept that there are things she just can't change.

Two things really impressed me while I read. First, though downplayed compared to Ellen's story, there are lots of details about Aunt Pearl and the things she does to help provide the community with needed food, much of which she cans herself, and clothing, while still caring for her sister.

Second, as a story about a family in crisis, taken the away from the hustle and bustle of a big city to the much slower moving country, it accentuates the kind of loving patience needed to help Ellen's mother with her severe depression, and undertaken not just by her sister Pearl, but by her old best friend, Hannah Armentrout.

On Snowden Mountain is a short novel that deals with some very serious themes, including family, mental illness, physical and mental abuse, and alcoholism and does it with empathy, and making it is a novel not to be missed.

Thinking about reading this with your class? You can find a useful Discussion Guide courtesy of the publisher, Candlewick Press, HERE

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was an ARC gratefully received from Candlewick Press

Rowan the Strange by Julie Hearn

It is September 1939 and Rowan Scrivener, 13, is in the fight of his life and it has nothing to do the war between England and Germany and everything to do with the state of his sanity. Rowan has always been a little ‘strange’ but now he is hearing voices in his head. They are getting louder and stronger and they are telling him to do things that hurt people.

His parents decide to put him in an asylum with the strong belief that Rowan will be helped there. The egotistical director, however, is more interested in publishing a razzle-dazzle article on a controversial new form of therapy then in helping Rowan. Electroshock, which sends electrical shocks to the brain, is relatively new and no one really knows what it will do, so the director has brought in a German doctor, Dr. von Metzer, to do some test cases and, diagnosed as schizophrenic, Rowan is an ideal candidate for it. But when Rowan emerges from the confusion of having his brain shocked, the doctors have a really unexpected consequence to deal with – Rowan now believes he is Superboy from the planet Krypton.

Rowan, however, isn't the only test case. He shares a room with Dorothea, a very intelligent teenaged girl with a quick smart mouth, who also just happens to see people’s guardian angels, including her own – Joan of Arc.

My first reaction to this book happened when I judged it by its cover. It has one of the worst covers I have ever seen and after I finished the book, I disliked the cover even more. It completely fails to capture Rowan’s basically kind, compassionate, serious nature. And so it sat on my shelf for a long time. But when I finally started reading, I was hooked before I finished the first page.

Rowan the Strange is set during the first year of World War II – the year of the phony war when no major fighting occurred - outside the asylum. But everyone’s nerves are taut with anticipation. Inside the asylum, deep feelings of hate are running high among the hospital’s staff against Dr. von Metzer, who, they assume, is a Nazi. And I admit, in the beginning, I expected von Metzer to be a Dr. Mengele equivalent. But I soon realized that Hearn turns all our expectations about the characters upside down in this book and, like the cover of the book, forces the reader to see beyond our first impressions.

Ms. Hearn has drawn the characters of Rowan, Dorothea and Dr. von Metzer with such depth, that the loneliness they feel because of their ‘outsider’ status is palpable. But the bond that forms between these three very gentle people is so genuine that it is enviable, especially in comparison to some of the other more socially acceptable but cruel, superficial characters in the novel.

Rowan the Strange is also a YA novel that could, like so many coming of age novels, have a great deal of appeal to an adult audience. It is straightforward story and, though not predictable, it is disturbing. Ms. Hearn’s writing style is clear and concise, and the topic of mental illness well researched. There are detailed descriptions of how electroshock is done and the immediate recovery process, which I found disquieting. There is also an interesting parallel between the treatment Rowan receives in an asylum thought to be compassionate and the so-called ‘euthanasia’ certain children were subjected to in Nazi Germany at the same time.

We live in a world where mental illness is not longer hidden away in asylums, but retrograde often happens, and we go back to doing things the old way. I highly recommend reading Rowan the Strange, first because it is a good, well written story and second, to remind us that asylums are not necessarily good things to go back to. I rather agree with Dr. Metzer’s comments:

“Compassion…human kindness…the effects of these, are far more than the shocks. I have seen and can measure with confidence. Cruelty too. And just recently I have come to a startling thought: is a person’s strangeness always to be seen as such a terrible thing? A thing to be altered, hidden away or even, in extreme cases--” (pg 308)

This book is recommended for readers age 12 and up.
This book was purchased for my personal library.

You can download and read the first chapter of Rowan the Strange at Children’s Books

Julie Hearn received the following well-deserved honors for Rowan the Strange
2009 Shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize
2010 Shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal

More reviews of Rowan the Strange may be found at Linus's Blanket  The Book Bug Write Meg and Vulpes Libris

This is book 9 of my British Books Challenge hosted by The Bookette