(4) YA Friddell tells the story of Virginia Hall, a Baltimore native who faced incredible danger as a British spy for the French resistance in World War II. Although the free-verse narrative style can be distracting, it paints a compelling portrait of a woman who refused to let her gender, nationality, or disability (an amputated leg) stop her from fighting for freedom in Europe. Black-and-white photos, from the war and from Virginia’s life, are interspersed.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Kerns

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Julie Downing. Chess and a chessboard become defining features of a young Viennese Jewish girl’s life at the turn of the twentieth century. Elsa, age six, loves to watch her three brothers play the game, begging them to teach her. After one of them does, “Elsa thought about chess all the time.” For her tenth birthday, her brothers give her a portable chess set. She plays and grows, one day falling in love with a chess-playing librarian, who later flees with her and their daughter -- and her chessboard -- to the United States when Nazism threatens. Chess becomes a way for German-speaking Elsa to make friends with her polyglot coworkers in San Francisco. Basing her story on her grandmother’s experiences (with some coming “from my imagination”), Andrus pens an economical, heartfelt narrative. Downing likewise invests her watercolors with thoughtful details. Particularly effective are occasional four-panel grids that offer tiny montages, such as one depicting a white-haired Elsa with her granddaughters, playing “the games the girls loved”: cards, checkers, Twister, and, at Hanukkah, dreidel. She’s lost her chessboard during a move, a sorrow brought home by a double-page spread of Elsa in her darkened bedroom, tracing her late husband’s face in a framed photo. Readers will be as happy as Elsa when the chessboard is rediscovered, its longevity documented in one of the family snapshots that accompany an author’s note and recommended resources about chess.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2025

(2) 4-6 It's June 1941 in West Branch, Iowa, and twelve-year-old Peggy's summer becomes marked by two secrets. The first is that she's fallen for Gunther, who is handsome, older (sixteen), and, most importantly, from away. A German Jew, Gunther is staying at a local refugee hostel run by Quakers. The second secret, involving Peggy's cousin and close friend, Delia, is more complicated. Delia has leukemia and has at most six months to live, but this reality is being withheld from the sick girl, who believes that she's simply anemic. The events of the summer and fall -- first love, revelations at the hostel against a background of war -- all play out within the context of Peggy's guilt, anger, resentment, confusion, preemptive grieving, and doomed determination to "fix" her cousin. By the end of six months, she has confronted the difficult truth that the distinctions among stories, lies, and history are not as clear as she had assumed. Bouwman's (Gossamer Summer, rev. 7/23) writing is crisp and specific, painting a convincing picture of rural life of the period, and she stays firmly in the consciousness of her spirited, questing, analytical, mathematically inclined heroine.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2025

(2) YA In this ambitious work, Bray alternates three seemingly disparate stories, briefly braiding them into one near the novel's end. In 1940s Germany, Sophie and Hanna are devotees of the Bridegroom's Oak, a hollow tree famed as a post box for exchanging love letters. As the Nazi regime becomes increasingly brutal and the girls work for the resistance, what better use for it than as a drop for forged documents? In the 1980s, overprotected Texan teen Jenny, who has moved with her family to West Berlin, takes on a new, rebellious life when she falls in love with punk band founder Lena, who is determined to pull off a dangerous rescue in East Berlin. And in 2020s Brooklyn, under COVID-19 lockdown, Miles and Chloe use their Zoom meetings to translate clippings and letters belonging to Chloe's German grandmother. The novel's strength lies in Bray's careful characterization of Sophie and Hanna and in the suspenseful life-or-death stakes of their story, generating momentum for the three-strand plot: how are the girls connected to characters in Berlin and Brooklyn? Thematic connections among the three milieux are patent, from fascist "making Germany great again" to perilously restrictive communist East Germany to the murder of George Floyd. Occasional peculiarities of expression ("one day, that fish who had been a boy would grow into a great whale") appear in writing that is generally sharply effective. Throughout, Bray stresses the value of resistance to "our flawed world's inhumanity, intolerance, and authoritarianism" by means of "acts both large and small."

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2025

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Melissa Castrillón . This meticulously researched and dramatically narrated picture book tells the story of Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who at great personal risk and sacrifice saved thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi-occupied southern France. In "what may have been the greatest individual act of rescue in all of World War II," he defied his government and in a twenty-three-day period in 1940 issued thousands of forbidden visas, ensuring safe passage into Portugal. The text is thoroughly informative as well as immediate and suspenseful; illustrations are eye-catching and lively (although the use of flags rather than names to identify countries on the maps seems less than ideal in such a location-dependent story). Unusually for a picture book, this is appended with an extensive bibliography and detailed source notes, plus an author's note and timeline.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Jacqueline Tam. Too young to understand the reason for the war but nevertheless affected by it, Shu Lok sets out with his family, minus his parents, into China in the wake of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941. Along the way, he experiences many hardships but finds the strength to endure from his baba’s parting words: “Be powerful like a dragon.” He adopts the dragons’ noble spirit and tends to his travel companions, easing their mental and physical loads throughout the trek until the group finds refuge. Cheng’s narration alternates between describing the sensory and emotional details of Shu Lok’s day-to-day experiences and painting broader strokes that convey the vast geographic distance and extended timeline of the arduous journey. Tam’s digital illustrations complement the text well, expanding and contracting in scope between close-ups of Shu Lok and his fellow travelers and landscapes that take up a full spread with the humans as tiny figures dwarfed by the terrain. The strategic use of lines for coloring and shading adds texture, depth, and movement to the illustrations. Sinuous shapes and suggestive shadows hiding in plain sight keep the dragon motif alive on pages where the creatures are not explicitly depicted. An author’s note filling in the family history (Shu Lok is Cheng’s uncle) and the historical context for the narrative is appended.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2025

(3) YA Based on her adult autobiography, Friedman recounts her childhood during the Holocaust, detailing her experiences in the Tomaszów Mazowiecki ghetto, the Starachowice labor camp, and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The book shares her heartbreaking experiences of loss, starvation, and cruelty, while highlighting her strength and resilience. The narrative’s historical importance and depth make this an indispensable tool for understanding this dark chapter in history. Suitable for upper middle-grade and older readers.

Reviewer: Summer Edward

(2) K-3 Following the same format as The House by the Lake (rev. 9/20), Harding and Teckentrup tell the story of the building where Anne Frank and seven others hid from the Nazis in WWII Amsterdam. The narrative begins in 1580 when the future building site is a bucolic marsh. Amsterdam grows rapidly during the late 1500s; the titular canal is created in the early 1600s, and in 1635 a stonemason builds the house and annex for his family. Over the next three hundred years, the house welcomes different families (e.g., a woman and her twelve children fleeing religious persecution), businesses, and for a while some horses in need of a stable. Neglected, it’s repaired over and over, including after a fire in 1884. ­Teckentrup’s textured mixed-media illustrations keep the pages engaging -- not an easy assignment when the setting is the same throughout. While Harding’s accessible text is light on details, a helpful endnote provides more information about inhabitants and businesses mentioned in the main text, including the tragic fate of Otto Frank’s family during the Holocaust and how he worked to preserve Anne Frank Huis for future generations. Readers don’t need to be familiar with Anne’s diary to appreciate the history of the house and its environs, but for those that are, this adds rich context.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2025

(2) 4-6 When Josefina Veluya Guerrero (1917-1996), known as Joey, was a little girl in the town of Lucban in the Philippine Islands, Joan of Arc was her hero. A devoted Catholic, she "wanted to serve her faith and walk through battlefields" like Joan. And, as Kelly's excellent nonfiction debut delineates, she did just that. As WWII begins, Guerrero is a young mother suffering from leprosy, but she joins the resistance movement and spies on the actions of Japanese soldiers, writes reports, delivers messages, and attends to injured fighters. When it is rumored that the Japanese military intends to slaughter prisoners in the Santo Tomas internment camp, she undertakes a tortuous forty-mile journey on foot to deliver an essential map to the U.S. Army's Thirty-Seventh Division headquarters. After the war, Guerrero's story continues at Carville, a leprosarium in Louisiana where she spends nine years. It's a large stage to set, and Kelly provides thorough historical context for it all—many sidebars for information about the war and leprosy, as well as abundant archival photographs and maps, all while attempting to keep Guerrero's narrative, related in immediate-sounding present tense, in the foreground. A fitting tribute to a fascinating figure. Back matter includes an author's note, further resources, source notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index (unseen).

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2025

(1) YA This deeply personal and poetic graphic novel illustrates the heroic actions of everyday Dutch people as they resisted the Nazi regime, as well as the lingering trauma inherited by subsequent generations. An omniscient blackbird with the ability to "sail between time and place" guides readers, and at times the characters, through the events of two seemingly disparate timelines. In 1943, headstrong Dutch university student Emma becomes involved in the covert relocation of Jewish children. When a group of defiant artists recruits Emma to participate in the forging and transportation of official documents, the stakes escalate with deadly consequences. In 2011, Annick, a young woman living in Amsterdam, sets out on an unexpected journey through her family's complicated WWII history, uncovering her ill grandmother's long-lost brother (and potential bone marrow donor). Art (embodied by the blackbird) as an act of defiance and source of inspiration is central to the story, with a series of handmade prints serving as a catalyst for revealing hard truths, merging past with present. The present-tense prose and print-block style digital illustrations are equally expressive, often hinting at meaning through an evocative phrase or dramatic shift in page layout. Van Lieshout seamlessly integrates black-and-white photographs, many from the actual resistance group Underground Camera, into panels and layouts. Extensive back matter highlights the real-life individuals and events that inspired and informed the narrative.

Reviewer: Patrick Gall | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2025

(1) 4-6 Operation Kinderspion series. From the moment eleven-year-old Max Bretzfeld arrives in England as a Jewish evacuee from WWII Germany (accompanied by two immortal, opinionated, and invisible-to-others creatures, a kobold and a dybbuk), his overriding desire is to return to Berlin. The preternaturally clever, resourceful Max has always protected his gentle parents, practiced as he is at anticipating the actions of bullies and staying ahead of their next moves. Who now will protect his parents from the Nazis? When he realizes that one of the men in his Jewish foster family works for British Naval Intelligence, he resolves to find a way to use that connection to be accepted as an undercover agent and sent back to Germany. Clearly, Gidwitz's (The Inquisitor's Tale, rev. 11/16) story calls for a great deal of suspension of disbelief, but the unlikely and fantastical elements are balanced by a rich and realistic depiction of WWII London, from the snobbery of life at an elite boys' school (including entrenched antisemitism) to the Blitz. Max's training as a spy is described in riveting detail, with readers rooting for the determined boy even as we know the dangers awaiting him if he passes the test. A cliffhanger ending (a sequel is promised) adds even more tension. An author's note gives more background on the historical and folkloric figures, settings, and events of the novel; an annotated bibliography is appended.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) 4-6 This graphic-format biography of Japanese American artist Asawa (1926 2013) begins on December 7, 1941, as teenage Ruth and her farming family hear that Japan has attacked Pearl Harbor. Soon the FBI arrests her father ("They think he's dangerous? He can't even kill a chicken for dinner"), and the rest of the family are sent to Santa Anita Racetrack, where they must sleep in horse stables. But luckily for Ruth, interned Disney animators are teaching drawing classes. "Everything was gray until I met the cartoonists...Truly, art saved me." After the family is sent to the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas, Ruth receives a college scholarship. She studies art education in Milwaukee -- then isn't allowed to graduate; the war has ended, but prejudice hasn't. At the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Ruth thrives and begins working on the wire sculptures for which she becomes so well known. A theme throughout is Ruth's sheer determination -- to not become a farmer; to study art; to marry the white man she loved despite their families' disapproval, to have children ("I want six") and still be an artist. Gratifyingly, the book closes with her doing just that. Nakahira's black-and-white illustrations, clear and direct, allow viewers to see both the helplessness and courage of those who were forcibly incarcerated. The art is also ideal for illuminating the lines, shapes, and empty spaces of Asawa's famous wire sculptures. Appended are further biographical information, a reading list, and photos of the artist and her work.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) 4-6 In 1942, French police in Occupied Paris rounded up over thirteen thousand French Jews and corralled them into a stadium; almost all perished at Auschwitz. Bradley's (The War That Saved My Life, rev. 1/15, and sequel) story begins just before the Jews are forced into the stadium, and Miri's neighbor thrusts her toddler into Miri's arms and tells her to run. Thanks to compassionate, quick-thinking nuns, the two end up in a village near Catherine de Medici's sixteenth-century castle, Chenonceau. Hiding in plain sight among summer boarders at a convent school, Miri (now known as Marie) grows familiar with the castle -- and with a ghost visible only to her, of Catherine de Medici herself. When Miri gets involved in rescuing refugees, Catherine repeatedly steps in to help her out. This is an engaging, imaginative yarn, and Miri's vulnerability and sense of responsibility give it emotional weight and contemporary appeal -- despite, or perhaps because of, the ways it stretches credulity. Given the ease of a few elements as well as a helpful ghost and Miri's talkativeness -- even when hiding from German soldiers only a few feet away -- the novel is something of an unlikely confection, like the fairy tale–esque castle at its center. Best read in tandem with more straightforward Holocaust accounts.`

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) 4-6 When contemporary twelve-year-olds Henry, Frances, and Lukas dig up an old radio in one of their backyards, they find themselves speaking with children of the same age, and at the same location, in 1944. Alice, Lawrence, and Artie do not know the outcome of World War II, and they certainly do not understand the consequences of interfering with a timeline. Soon enough, small, seemingly heroic actions, such as stopping a fire at a beloved candy shop, start to mess with history in very serious ways. The U.S., in 2023, changes overnight to a nightmarish new reality in which the Nazis won WWII and now control the country, renamed Westfallen. The kids from the present and the past must team up to undo the colossal damage that has been done, stopping a spy and thus righting their mistakes, before Westfallen becomes a permanent reality. But that escapade is only the beginning of an adventure that will challenge readers to consider the past, the future, and the nature of history itself. Fascinating time-travel theories collide with historical fiction to set the scene for a story that is suspenseful, complex, and at times humorous. Rapid shifts between past and present might be confusing at first, but as the plot picks up, the details coalesce to form one seamless narrative. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for the next installment in a projected series.

Reviewer: Sarah Berman | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(1) YA Bletchley Park, a World War II cryptology center, operated in the English countryside where an extensive and complicated code-breaking operation allowed the Allies to decipher secret messages sent through German Enigma machines. Those transmissions included enemy plans for naval attacks, ship locations, ground positions, and bombing targets, and Fleming (Crash from Outer Space, rev. 11/22, among many others) reveals that the feat of decoding the thousands of pieces of information every day was largely executed by teenage girls and young women. Recruited with little or no knowledge of what their jobs would be, the code breakers were sworn to secrecy--an oath that would remain unbroken for over thirty years. Fleming's account focuses on ten such young women (one of whom is an offsite radio operator) but, in a masterful presentation of related subject matter, seamlessly intersperses segments on larger historical events, beginning with the Battle of Britain and concluding with V-J Day; clear and thorough explanations of codes and ciphers; and technical advances that led to the use of computers. The girls' personal experiences, from coping with housing shortages, to falling in love, to discovering their future life's work, adds another dimension. Amid the often-tedious work of breaking the ciphers, moments of humanity appear: the joy of pinpointing an enemy bombing target on British soil; the recognition that a freshly bloodstained Nazi cipher book meant "somewhere this German airman was still bleeding, dying maybe...That really did bring the war close." Appended with an author's note, a bibliography of both primary and secondary sources, source notes, and an (unseen) index.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) YA Readers learn two things at the beginning of this novel: twelve-year-old Alex did something terrible, and he hates the word opportunity. The word has only come up in the worst moments of Alex's life, most recently when his court-mandated social worker arranges for him to volunteer over the summer at the local retirement home full of old people whom Alex thinks are "gross." At Shady Glen, Alex meets bossy kid volunteer Maya-Jade as well as 107-year-old Holocaust survivor Jozef Kravitz, who serves as the story's narrator, though he has an omniscient perspective. Jozef, who has been silent for five years, begins to share with Alex the story of Olka, the love of his life, and the hardships they endured in Nazi-occupied Poland. As Jozef opens up, so does Alex's world; he befriends other residents and Maya-Jade and learns to look beyond the pain, anger, and self-loathing that have been churning inside him ever since his mother's disappearance and his kinship foster care placement. Forman crafts a unique story, told in the voice of a wiser, older character; everything feels close and personal, from Alex's present to Jozef's past. She captures the quietly powerful moments of feeling seen and known, how friendships can make a bleak life feel fresh with possibilities, and how a person's worst moments need not shape their future.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) 4-6 Thirteen-year-old boys Frank McCoy and Stanley Summers live on Ford Island, a naval base in the middle of Pearl Harbor. They have become fast friends, bonding over a shared interest in comic books. Frank's family recently moved to Hawaii from the mainland, where he is hoping to leave behind not just memories of a traumatic incident but the constant worry and fear that plague him as a result. When Frank doesn't stand up for Stanley during a fight with bullies, it causes a rift in their friendship. Nevertheless, they are both invited to the USS Utah the next day, December 7, 1941, which places them in the thick of things during the attack on Pearl Harbor. While both boys survive the horrific events of that day, they confront a great deal of death as well as mayhem and internal demons. Frank comes to terms with his fear, while Stanley -- whose mother is Japanese -- is already being targeted for harassment. Frank's family is relocated to California shortly afterward and the boys bid a sad farewell, but not before Frank passes a draft of a story for their comic book to Stanley. The novel concludes with the opening scenes of their finished comic book collaboration, published many years in the future. Short chapters and fast pacing with lots of dialogue and action make this an easy recommendation for Gratz fans (Grenade, rev. 11/18; Ground Zero, rev. 3/21; and others). An author's note with additional historical and background information is appended.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) YA Thirteen-year-old Liv lives with her parents in England. When she's tasked with a family history assignment for school, she decides to investigate her ninety-two-year-old grandmother. While helping Bubbe move into an assisted living facility, Liv discovers a secret chest from her grandmother's past and learns more than she bargained for. A second story unfolds in alternating chapters: twelve-year-old Mila and her older sister, Hannie, live in Holland in 1942, but since they are Jewish and the Nazis have taken over the country, they do not live with their parents. Rather, they have assumed different identities, hiding in plain sight with a non-Jewish foster family in Amsterdam. Hannie gets drawn into the Dutch resistance with grave consequences; she is the titular Kingfisher. It's quickly revealed that Mila is, in fact, Liv's grandmother, but Kessler makes readers wait to learn the entire story, using lots of dialogue, a notably fast pace, four viewpoint characters, and several dozen short chapters to further develop suspense. An engrossing read, one that provides depth to the Dutch experience during the Holocaust beyond Anne Frank and her famous diary.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) YA At the onset of World War II, German U-boats (submarines) mercilessly sank the military and civilian ships of the Allies, making transatlantic travel a risky endeavor. Americans living abroad had to weigh the risks of remaining in German-occupied territories against the treacherous weeks-long voyage back home. U-boat attacks were unrelenting until late in the war when advances in microwave radar detection allowed the Allies to pinpoint their locations, rendering them virtually useless. As the title suggests, this book divides its focus between the heart-wrenching story of survivors of the torpedoed SS West Lashaway awaiting rescue on a small wooden raft in shark-infested waters and a concise and highly readable history of the science of electromagnetic fields. Beginning with discoveries in the eighteenth century, Lantos provides background on each advancement in the science as well as biographical information about the scientists involved, finally introducing the American military scientists and engineers who figured out how to use microwaves to precisely locate distant objects. He ups the tension by alternating the harrowing experience of the shipwreck survivors with development of the radar equipment that was critical to both their rescue and the Allied victory in WWII. This page-turning account, with archival images and occasional chapter-opening illustrations (by Alan Marks), provides equal parts suspense and wonder for readers of history and science alike. Appended with thorough source notes, a bibliography, and an index.

Reviewer: Eric Carpenter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(2) YA Elizebeth Smith Friedman (1892–1980) and her husband, William Friedman, "are now recognized together as the two most influential code-breakers in American history." Elizebeth, however, remains largely underappreciated, so Moss shares a fine-spun account of her career and its many impressive contributions (some of which are still classified by the U.S. government). Moss follows the trajectory of this fascinating, singular woman's life (with details about William's work as it parallels Elizebeth's, but without shifting the focus from her) as she solves supposedly unbreakable codes containing enemy plans during both world wars. In between wars, Elizebeth's job at the Treasury Department requires her to risk her safety testifying at high-profile organized-crime trials, gaining unwelcome notoriety in the press. She faces sexism throughout her career, often not receiving proper pay or credit. But Moss emphasizes that Elizebeth -- who proudly leads her own code-breaking team -- doesn't let any of these challenges deter her from doing the work she loves. As in Moss's The Woman Who Split the Atom (rev. 7/22), chapters begin with brief comics by the author that provide visual context for the historical scenes. Hand this to fans of Fleming's recent The Enigma Girls (rev. 5/24). Archival photographs, a helpful "What Are Codes? What Are Ciphers?" section, a glossary, a timeline, notes, a bibliography, and an (unseen) index are appended.

Reviewer: Cynthia K. Ritter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024