In Honor of D Day

I saw a commercial the other day for The Monuments Men, which is now out on DVD.  This is a WWII era story about the military men who searched for and recovered art stolen by the Nazis during their various occupations.  This got me to thinking there are so many stories written about the Holocaust but harder to find are books set in WWII but about other topics.  I know there are several out there as I have read them myself and read them with students so I thought I’d give you a list of books to check out.  And with the 70th anniversary of D Day coming up tomorrow, these books tell the stories that we must not forget.  

First up is Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, based on the true story of how the Danish people saved 90% of their Jewish population from death this book is centered on young Annemarie Johannesen, her family and her friend Ellen Rosen.  At the beginning of the book Denmark is under German Occupation but as of yet has done nothing with the Jews in the country as they have in others.  Suddenly the button shop on the corner owned by a Jewish family is closed, Ellen’s family goes to synagogue and when they come home Ellen stays the night while her parents go somewhere.  In the middle of the night German soldiers come banging on the door, the Johannesen family pretends that Ellen is their daughter Lise, who died a few years ago.  The next morning Annemarie, her mother, sister Kirsti, and Ellen head off to the coast to Uncle Henrik’s house.  From here you learn how the Danish people hid and smuggled their Jewish friends and neighbors across to Sweden.  While there is no movie version of this particular book there is a Wonderful World of Disney movie: Miracle at Midnight that tells a very similar tale with a bit more detail of the Danish resistance.  They are an excellent set.  After all the sadness and horror of the Holocaust books it is uplifting to read this book of the determination and victory over the Nazis.

France was another country occupied by the Nazis and For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley is the story obviously of a French spy, a member of the French resistance.  This spy however is 13 year old Suzanne David a school-girl and aspiring singer.  The day the Nazis invade she and a friend are at the beach where they witness a pregnant neighbor die from a bomb blast.  Soon after she and her family are forced out of their home. She is then offered a chance to help the resistance and takes it.  This is a fast-paced story told in first person, based on interviews with the real Suzanne David, filled with suspense.  Definitely a good read.

Yet one more story based on some events that happened during WWII is Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan.  In June of 1940, a Norwegian freighter landed in Baltimore with $9,000,000 worth of gold bullion.  Reports from the crew state that the children of Norway smuggled the bullion past the occupying German soldiers on sleds.  McSwigan turned this into a book, with the story focusing on Peter, his Uncle Victor, his mother and the others of their small village, doing exactly that smuggling the gold bullion of Norway onto Uncle Victor’s ship by hiding it on their sleds and sledding right past the unknowing German soldiers.  Another great story of triumph from a horrible time period.

While I grew up learning about the Holocaust and World War II, I never learned about the Japanese internment camps here in the United States, that is until I was reading Silent Honor by Danielle Steele. This is clearly not a young adult book but it was my eye opener so I mentioned it.  In 2008 David Patneaude released his book Thin Wood Walls about Joe Hanada and his family who are taken from their homes near Seattle to an internment camp.  We see his entire family take up residence in a single stall of a stable turned “apartment”.  Throughout the story we see many different reactions from the Japanese Americans held in this camp, some like Joe’s brother Mike decide to enlist in the Army to prove their loyalty to the country, others ask to be repatriated to Japan, still others insist on only speaking Japanese.  Again this book was an eye-opener for me to what was thought to be a precaution and instead an embarrassing time in American history.  This time has come even more to light recently with the writing and production of Allegiance by George Takei, best known for his portrayal of Sulu in the original Star Trek series and movies.  The play is the story of Takei’s own time in the internment camps.  Thin Wood Walls is a must read as I truly believe if we are not aware of our history we are more likely to repeat it.

There were other camps in America during WWII, camps for German prisoners of war. One such camp and the town near it is the setting for the book Summer of My German Soldier by Betty Green.  Patty Bergen is a twelve year old Jewish girl in small town Arkansas when a POW camp is set up.  She meets and connects with Anton, then hides him above her father’s garage.  I will be honest I haven’t read this book myself but I worked with a history teacher who read it to her classes every year, so on her recommendation I recommend it to you.

One final book to recommend, it’s actually post WWII but it’s a great follow-up to Thin Wood Walls.  This is not an actual sequel but the stories go together well.  Bat 6 by Virginia Euwer Wolff is told by 21 girls from a small town in Oregon.  The two local grade schools have a yearly softball game.  On one team is a girls whose father was killed in the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the other a Japanese American girl back from the internment camps.  Racism runs rampant in this town as the girls prepare for their game.  Getting each girls’ viewpoint makes this a unique and easily connectable story and a great life lesson.

Hopefully somewhere in here you found a book you’d like to read or that you’ll recommend to a young adult you know.

The Giver Quartet

I taught middle school communication arts for nine years and during that time I found some amazing books for my students to read.  I was the student in school that was never very happy when I had to read the book everyone else had to read, and yet I became a teacher that assigned the same book to the whole class.  I did this for many reasons but often it was because they were books I loved myself and wanted to share.  Fortunately for me these books also became favorites of many of my students.  I plan on sharing several of these books with you so you can read them or recommend them to the preteen-teenager in your life.

“I never liked reading til you made me read The Giver.” A former student told me this and I could do nothing but grin ear to ear.  The Giver is about a young boy named Jonas.  Jonas lives in an utopian society.  Students have always asked me for at time frame on this specifically asking if it happens in the future.  I don’t know from context clues in this book at it’s companion I can make a guess and that’s what I share with them but the truth is we really don’t know.  What we do know is this world if very different from our own.  Spouses are assigned to one another, children are given to families, Birthmother is a JOB yeah you read that right a job (always a headshaker that one is, tends to lead to some interesting questions too that I’m not always eager to answer lol).  It is nearly December and time for the Ceremony of Twelve, as well as all the other aging ceremonies.  See in this society all children born in one year become “one year older” on the same day be they two months or twelve months in actuality.  Each year brings something new maybe clothes, their own bicycle, a haircut, but it is the Ceremony of Twelve that is the biggest.  At 12 children are assigned their job.  At 12… this is always a big talking point.  Each job is only assigned to one child per year and there are only 50 children in each year.  Jonas is skipped at the ceremony leading to some serious angst until at the end he is told that he has not been assigned he has been chosen. Jonas is to be the new Receiver of Memory.  As Jonas begins to train for this position his thoughts and feelings about his community change dramatically.  This is a must read for anyone and everyone!

Kira lives in another much less advanced society in the same world as Jonas.  Gathering Blue is a companion to The Giver in that it occurs at nearly the same time while it is not a sequel it might just answer the question you were left with at the end of Giver.  My former students could tell you that question but I won’t give it away. 😉

The setting of Gathering Blue is what led me to my conclusion about the overall setting of this universe.  Students asked me year after year when and where this takes place.  I have no direct answer as I’ve never found one from Lois Lowry perchance because she wants her readers to think, but I have told students what I think, what I have inferred from the books and other things.  I believe this is a post major cataclysm world, I remind kids of the Simpson Treehouse of Horror episode for Y2K, most of them have seen it repeats at some point, where Lisa gets the invite to the shuttle taking off to start a new world with the best and brightest.  I also tell them I saw a similar thing in the movie Deep Impact where the best and brightest of the US were gathered in the Ozark caves.  I think Jonas’s community is the result of the best and brightest while Kira’s is that of those left behind.

OK and now back to the book.  Kira is born with a physical disability in her community this is cause to take her out in the field and leave her for the animals but her mother fights to keep her.  Kira’s mother then dies when Kira is a pre-teen another woman in the community wants the lot Kira’s cot (cottage) stood on to create a pen for her children (yeah stellar mom material there).  She takes it up with the Council of the community who award her Kira’s space but take Kira in for a special job where she finds she is not the only orphan that has been taken in.

Throughout the book Kira’s constant friend is Matt, a little boy from the roughest edge of this rough community.  When she needs blue thread to finish a section of the robe she is embroidering Matt sets off in search of it (yep he’s gathering blue).

Matt, now Matty’s story continues in Messenger.  He has moved away from Kira’s community to yet a third in this strange world. We meet old and new characters as Matty hopes to receive his title/job, he hopes for the title of Messenger but there is something more to him.  Something more to him like there was something more to Jonas in The Giver and Kira in Gathering Blue.  I was excited when this book came out because it seemed to wrap up the loose ends from both previous books.  Be warned the ending is not your typical fairy tale happy ending then again not all stories do have a happy ending, a good life lesson. Still it’s worth the read even for the tears you may have at the end.

I was positively shocked a few months ago when I was wondering through the library to see a new Lois Lowry audiobook that said it was the conclusion of the Give Quartet.  Um what it’s a quartet now?  There’s another book???  I very nearly ran to the juvenile lit then teen sections to try and find the paper copy of the book.  While seriously disappointed it wasn’t on the shelf I didn’t give up and off to the computer I went to put Son on hold.   Son is the story of Claire a girl from Jonas’s community who was assigned the job of Birthmother.   This was an interesting look at a side of the community I wished I could see during The Giver, but it led to some inconsistencies between the two books.  Claire talks about Birthmothers having 3 products (children) after orientation and preparation which could be a year to two years. while in Giver Jonas’s mother specifically tells his little sister Lily that it’s a two year job two babies and that’s it.  Not sure if this is simply because the general community knows so little about the Birthmother job or if it’s a matter of it being so long between writing Giver and Son that Lowry made a mistake.  Either way being detail oriented like I am it took me out of the story for a little bit but it didn’t take long for me to get back.  Claire has a product, read baby, she has trouble during delivery and has to have an emergency c-section now maybe this just struck me more because I also had to have an emergency c-section but it was hard to read, harder because Claire has no idea what’s going on her eyes are covered the whole time.  Due to the problem she is released from the position of Birthmother, she asks about her product and is told he is ok.  He hmmm at this point I was wondering who the he would be because from the book jacket I knew it was a boy that left the community that could be Jonas or the newchild his family was caring for Gabe.  The story continues with Claire taking on a new job and finding a way to volunteer at the newchild center so she can be with her son whom she becomes very attached to.  When her son leaves the community so does she.

When next we see Claire she has been rescued from the sea and has amnesia.  This is yet another rough/primitive community in this world but this one is overall happy and the people get along well much like in Messenger.  Claire recovers her health and then her memory.  Reading her struggles I cried a few times.  There is a third part of the book that seems to be very short, the end comes very quickly but is satisfying.  If you’ve read the other three books go get this one, if you’ve only read The Giver, read all three others you won’t regret it.  If you’ve already read them all I’d love to hear your opinion.