I have a degree in history and political science, with a particular interest in military history—especially World War II history, and most especially Eastern Front history. My family has Polish roots, and my own stories tend to focus on the Polish and Ukrainian experiences, but I keenly feel the need for more YA books not only about the Eastern Front but about other, even lesser-known theaters of World War II.
This is a haunting and uncomfortable book, in the best way; it’s one that you can’t stop thinking about because it raises difficult questions without providing easy answers. Barker writes about the immediate postwar period through the eyes of a German girl who must come to terms with what her country and her own family have done during the war. This book doesn’t gloss over anything; we see firsthand what the Soviet occupation means for the German civilian population, and we must grapple with questions of culpability and justice, of who deserves judgment and who has the right to mete it out.
A brilliant historical YA that asks: how do you choose between survival and doing the right thing?
The arrival of the Soviet army in Germany at the end of World War II sends sixteen-year-old Katja and her family into turmoil. The fighting has stopped, but German society is in collapse, resulting in tremendous hardship. With their father gone and few resources available to them, Katja and her sister are forced to flee their home, reassured by their mother that if they can just reach a distant friend in a town far away, things will get better. But their harrowing journey…
I loved this story about a Japanese-American boy who accidentally becomes pen pals with a French Jewish girl. Alex isn’t thrilled to find out Charlie is a girl, but as time passes, their friendship becomes an unshakeable bond—and then Charlie’s letters stop coming, and Alex’s family is forced into an internment camp by the US government. Alex siezes an opportunity to volunteer for a Japanese-American infantry regiment (the highly decorated 442nd), hoping all the while that he can somehow, miraculously, find Charlie.
This book is bittersweet and infuriating, cleverly juxtaposing the prejudice and mistreatment faced by Alex’s family with the ever increasing restrictions and cruelties faced by Charlie in German-occupied Paris, and it contains some of the best depictions of combat I’ve read in a YA novel.
In 1935, ten-year-old Alex Maki, from Bainbridge Island, Washington, exchanges letters with Charlie, a French girl in Paris, building a budding friendship across the Atlantic. Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the growing Nazi persecution of Jews force both young people to confront the darkest aspects of human nature. From the desolation of an internment camp on the plains of Manzanar to the horrors of Auschwitz and the devastation of European battlefields, the only thing they can hold onto are the memories of their letters. But nothing can dispel the light between them.
Miranda falls in love with her dream house but soon discovers it's an affair with complications. A lot of them. Rosewood is a centuries old, tumble-down, gambrel roofed charmer located in an isolated, coastal corner of Virginia referred to as "strange". Known for long-standing and antiquated customs, an almost indecipherable…
Marina Scott’s The Hunger Between Us fills a curious gap in YA fiction about World War II: This is the only YA novel I’ve ever read that deals with the Siege of Leningrad.
But it’s not really about the Siege of Leningrad; it’s about a girl searching doggedly for her lost friend, refusing to give up hope in a city where hunger has turned neighbor against neighbor, father against daughter, and nobody can be trusted. A profoundly character-driven war novel.
In a city ruled by hunger, the black market is Liza's lifeline, where she sells or steals whatever she can get her hands on just for enough food to survive. Morality, after all, has become a fluid thing during the brutal year her city has been under siege. But when Liza's best friend proposes that they go to the secret police, rumored to give young women food in exchange for 'entertainment,' Liza thinks there surely must be some other way. Then her friend disappears, and Liza devises a plan to find her, entangling herself with two dangerous young men -…
Unexpected for a book about kamikaze, this is a quiet and gentle story, about two young people—Taro, a kamikaze pilot, and Hana, one of the Nadeshiko Tai, assigned to serve the pilots—who meet through a shared vital love of music. They both know the inevitability and finality of Taro’s upcoming mission; they both are at the mercy of circumstances beyond their control. Yet their hopes and dreams remain larger than the war. This is another one that will stay with you for a long time.
Japan 1945. Taro is a talented violinist and a kamikaze pilot in the days before his first and only mission. He believes he is ready to die for his country... until he meets Hana. Hana hasn't been the same since the day she was buried alive in a collapsed trench during a bomb raid. She wonders if it would have been better to have died that day...until she meets Taro. A song will bring them together. The war will tear them apart. Is it possible to live an entire lifetime in eight short days?
A spy school for girls amidst Jane Austen’s high society.
Daughters of the Beau Monde who don’t fit London society’s strict mold are banished to Stranje House, where the headmistress trains these unusually gifted girls to enter the dangerous world of spies in the Napoleonic wars. #1 NYT bestselling author…
I could have picked any one of Elizabeth Wein’s World War II novels; all are unique and profound, and all consider aspects of the war we don’t read about too often, or that we don’t often consider through the lens of women’s roles. But I chose White Eagles, about a young Polish female pilot modeled closely on Anna Leska, because I appreciate the attention it draws to the air war on the Eastern Front and because this is another story built mainly on the humanity of its characters; pilot Kristina’s poignant relationships both with her brother and with her young passenger are the driving forces of the narrative.
Summer 1939. With Europe on the brink of war, eighteen-year-old Kristina Tomiak has been called up to join the White Eagles, Poland's valiant air force. When the Nazis reach the town where she is based, Kristina makes a daring escape, but she doesn't realise that she's carrying a stowaway in her plane. Will Kristina be able to navigate the most challenging flight of her life and reach safety amid the turmoil of war? Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant or dyslexic readers aged 13+
Traitor is the story of a half Polish, half Ukrainian Soviet sniper who goes on the run in 1944 Poland after not-quite-accidentally shooting his own political officer. He finds himself caught up in a muddled war-within-a-war between Soviets, Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians, all of whom consider him the enemy. It's a story about identity and belonging and, most of all, about holding on to humanity and compassion in the face of unimaginable hatred.
Bright but unassuming Marilyn Jones has some grown-up decisions to make, especially after Mama goes to prison for drugs and larceny. With no one to take care of them, Marilyn and her younger, mentally challenged brother, Carol, get tossed into the foster care…
Disgraced British anthropologist Nigel Rowe hopes his YouTube adventure channel will be just the treat to redeem him, but vengeful treasure hunters have other plans! Seeking a legendary Jesuit mission in Baja, Nigel saves his producer’s life when the man takes a bullet meant for him.
