WORLD WAR II IN YOUNG ADULT FICTION

A Personal Selection
By
M. Paul Holsinger, Department of History,
Illinois State University

The following novels, designed primarily for youthful readers, are among the best depictions of various aspects of World War II. These volumes are ones that are relatively "popular" and ones that should be readily available in school or public libraries in many places throughout the state. If they're not, they should be.

Aaron, Chester. Gideon. (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980)
A disturbing but provocative story about a young Polish boy caught in the
Holocaust.

Arnold, Elliott. A Kind of Secret Weapon. (New York: Scribners, 1969)
An excellent story of a young Danish boy working for the Resistance
against the Germans who occupy his homeland.

Attema, Martha. A Time to Choose. (Victoria, BC: Orca Books, 1995)
A teen-aged boy in the midst of the Dutch Resistance faced with the
question of loyalty to his father or to his friends. Very thoughtful.

Bauer, Marion Dane. Rain of Fire. (New York: Clarion, 1983)
A very thoughtful story of a young boy set in a small Illinois town faced,
at the end of the war, with the fact that his Marine Corps' brother is not the
hero he had wanted him to be.

Bernhardsen, Christian. Fight in the Mountains. (New York: HBW, 1968)
Brutally frank novel about the Norwegian Resistance and the ambiguity of
friends and enemies at war.

Carter, Peter. The Hunted. (New York: FSG, 1994)
A unique tale about a young Jewish child and the Italian soldier who tries
to keep him out of the hands of the Nazis and their French collaborator friends. `A great story filled with endless suspense.

Claggett, John. Surprise Attack. (New York: Julian Messner, 1968)
and Typhoon 1944 (New York, Julian Messner, 1969)
Two fine stories of the United States Navy at war, first at the Battle of
Leyte Gulf and then during the huge typhoon that hit the Pacific Fleet in
December 1944.

Degens, T. The Visit. (New York: Viking, 1982)
Two young girls in the Hitler Youth program and the crisis that results in
one of their deaths.

DeVries, Anne. Journey through the Night. (St.Catherine's Ont.: Padeia, 1978)
A four-volume-in-one study of a Dutch family during the war years. Openly
"Christian" (and harder to find than many of the books on this list except in church libraries), this is an honest, unflinching story of death, disaster and, ultimately, victory. Nearly 800 pages in length but for more than a generation one of Holland's most popular series of children's novels.

Foreman, James. Ceremony of Innocence. (New York: Hawthorn, 1970), and The Survivor. (New York, FSG, 1976)
Anything James Foreman writes is worth reading-he's a great storyteller-but these two are among his very best. The first tells the dramatic story of the Scholls-brother and sister-and their college friends who organized the White Rose Society in Munich to oppose Hitler during the war and who paid for it with their lives. The second is an account of a Dutch Jewish boy and his family as it slowly faces extermination at the hands of the Nazis.

Gaeddert, Louann. Friends and Enemies. (New York: Atheneum, 2000)
One of the best new works dealing with the war years. Set in Kansas, it focuses on "patriotic" Americans and the pacifistic Mennonite Church folk who refuse to fight or to help the war effort.

Gregor, Manfred. The Bridge. (New York: Random House, 1960)
Young, doomed Hitler Youth try to stop the invasion of their hometown by
an overwhelming contingent of American Army troops in early 1945. A mature
but superior story.

Grund, Josef. Never to Be Free. (Boston: Little Brown, 1970)
The disillusionment of a dedicated Hitler Youth. A wonderful story originally
published in Germany and then translated into English. Very perceptive.

Laird, Christa. Shadow of the Wall. (New York: Greenwillow, 1990)
A young boy and his quest to survive in the Warsaw Ghetto. Depressing but
evocative, this novel celebrates the triumph of the human spirit over unimaginable odds.

Levey, Myron. Alan and Naomi.(New York: Harper and Row, 1977)
New York in 1944 hardly is at war but this superb story chronicles an account
of the impact of war as strong as any on one of the battlefronts of the world scene. Also made into a not-altogether bad juvenile film.

Matas, Carol. Lisa's War. (New York: Scribners, 1989)
Like James Foreman, Carol Matas has never written a bad novel but this, one
of her earliest is one of the very best. Set in Denmark at the time of the Nazi
occupation, it is suspenseful as it tells fictionally an account of the saving of the
majority of Denmark's Jews from the Germany death camps.

Mazer, Harry. The Last Mission. (New York: Delacorte, 1979)
A young Jewish boy in the USAF learns that "war is not like the movies …
it's about awful sad things." A well-drawn, often powerful story.

Moskin, Marietta. I Am Rosemarie. (New York: John Day, 1972)
Another Holocaust story-one of the best-about a young Dutch female
protagonist who overcomes the horrors of the camps to survive. A fine read.

Patterson, Sarah. The Distant Summer. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976)
England at war. No doubt this would be called a "girl's story" but it is one that Judy Blume says accurately is "a beautiful, romantic story, one that stays with you long after you've read the book." A great evocation of time and place.

Pausewang, Gudrun. The Final Journey. (New York: Puffin, 1992)
A great book but one of the most disturbing as well. Set almost exclusively in one of the thousands of box cars taking Jews to their deaths, this story has a "you are there" immediacy that makes one understand what it truly must have been like during those horrible days.

Szambelan-Stevinsky, Christine. Dark Hour of Noon. (Phila.: Lippincott, 1982).
A very powerful, poignant juvenile novel with its focus on Poland during the German occupation. Horrific, with children killing and being killed but never gratuitous and always on target.

Ter Haar, Jaap. Boris. (New York: Delacorte, 1970)
Chosen the Best Children's Book of the Year in the Netherlands when it first appeared, the setting is not Holland bu the embattled Russian city of Leningrad
and the effect the 1000-day German blockade had on two young "captives" of
that huge metropolitan area.

Walsh, Jill Paton. The Dolphin Crossing. (New York: St. Martin's, 1967)
The "Miracle at Dunkirk" and the lives of two young British boys intersect with dramatic if sad results.

Westall, Robert. The Machine Gunners. (New York: William Morrow, 1976), and The Kingdom by the Sea. (New York: FSG, 1991)
Yet another winner, the late Robert Westall was a great story teller whether writing about World War II or ghost stories for children. These two Accounts, both set in England during the war with teen-aged male protagonists, are distinguished novels. The first, one of Westall's first, is a Wonderful account of a young boy determined to shoot down his own German plane. The second is an account of a young boy on his own after the "death" of his parents during a Nazi bombing raid.

Yolen, Jane. The Devil's Arithmetic. (New York: Viking Penguin, 1988)
One of the best time travel stories-of which there are many dealing with the war
years-this tense novel allows a young New York Jewish girl to be transported
back to the days of the Holocaust and to the horrors of the death camps.

There are easily another twenty fairly recently published volumes of substance that are war related. Few of these, unfortunately, deal with the Pacific theater. Some of the better works that do, all somewhat older, are the works of Robb White that include such books as Silent Ship, Silent Sea, Surrender, or The Survivor. No one will go wrong reading them. Graham Salisbury: Under the Blood-RedSun or Harry Mazer: A Boy at War, both about the attack on Pearl Harbor, are also interesting.

Photo taken from American Memory