Synopsis
During the closing months of World War II, a fifteen-year-old German girl must decide whether or not to help an escaped Russian prisoner of war, despite the serious consequences if she does so.
Reviews
Grade 7-10–Pausewang presents an exciting and thought-provoking novel from the perspective of a teen who secretly questions the validity of Nazi ideals. In the last year of World War II, 16-year-old Anna discovers an escaped Russian POW in her village barn and makes a conscious choice to provide shelter, food, and safety, risking certain death if discovered. With her older brother, Seff, at the front and her younger brother, Felix, completely indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth Movement, Anna represents a voice of reason and humanity as she struggles to make sense of her country's political aspirations. Like Markus Zusak's The Book Thief (Knopf, 2006), this novel portrays good, caring German citizens caught in the cruel domination of a mad dictator. Readers are left with a brutal and hopelessly realistic conclusion that will provide much opportunity for discussion. This is a powerful view of resistance and fortitude when ordinary citizens have little control over their lives other than their own private thoughts and beliefs.–Rita Soltan, Youth Services Consultant, West Bloomfield, MI
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When Anna finds a fugitive Russian soldier in the barn of her village home in Stiegnitz, Germany, at the end of 1944, she hides him in a bunker in the countryside, though she could be shot for sheltering the enemy. Told from Anna's viewpoint, the story, translated from the German, is a tense survival drama. It is also a close-up of Germans in all their diversity as the war is ending and the Allies advance. There are differences even within Anna's own family: some long for peace and refuse to support the Nazis; Anna's older brother is a soldier at the front; her younger brother, and her greatest danger, is a fanatical member of the Hitler Youth, who would not hesitate to betray her if he knew her secret. There's too much detail about the months Anna hides the soldier, but Pausewang, whose World War II books include The Final Journey (1996) and The Dark Hours (2006), clearly portrays the lives of ordinary people on the home front. The shocking, unforgettable climax shows the truth of war. Hazel Rochman
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