[Franzilla Posts: 998 Status: Offline Gah! WWW]

A relation of mine is looking for books (middle grade and lower age YA) for her two sons that are set in times of war or under a dictatorship. They have just moved back to Germany, (she is German) and she would like to educate them about war etc through literature.


Any great recs? Her kids can read English, Spanish, German, Portuguese and French. Yeah, I know. How?! But they can.

[annastan Posts: 588 Status: Offline WWW]

There are lots of great ones out there, but two that come to mind are BLACK RADISHES by Susan Meyer and NUMBER THE STARS by Lois Lowry.

[LadySlipper Posts: 174 Status: Offline]

Anything by Albert Marrin.

[dinalapomy101 Posts: 1,894 Status: Offline Happy writing to all! WWW]

BETWEEN SHADES OF GREY by Ruta Sepetys. Is that too old?

[JodyJS Posts: 1,283 Status: Offline Preorder now! Out April 2021! WWW]

Might be too young, but the mid-grade BREAKING STALIN'S NOSE is an excellent book about, well, Stalin.

[Vijaya Posts: 7,381 Status: Offline Encourage WWW]

What a great title, Jody!

The Good Fight by Stephen Ambrose (NF -- one of the best books about WWII)
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh (a novel, N. Vietnam, adult, but appropriate for YA)
First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung (Cambodia, memoir YA)
Summer of my German Soldier by Bette Greene (German POW)
Diary of Anne Frank (classic)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (this is also now a movie)
There Be Dragons (movie set during the Spanish civil war)

Vijaya

[Franzilla Posts: 998 Status: Offline Gah! WWW]

Brilliant. Thank you all!

[Barbara Etlin Posts: 2,258 Status: Offline WWW]

WHEN MY NAME WAS KEOKO by Linda Sue Park (MG about Japanese invasion of Korea, World War II)

[Natalie Posts: 743 Status: Offline Flying the Dragon, Charlesbridge 2012 WWW]

I recently read ODETTE'S SECRETS by Maryanne McDonald about a Jewish girl from Paris who is sent to live with a family in the French countryside while her mother stayed in Paris to work for the underground resistance.

[JulieM Posts: 945 Status: Offline WWW]

I second THE BOOK THIEF. One of the best books I've ever read.
HITLER'S DAUGHTER by Jackie French is a kind of "what if?" book set in modern-day Australia, but it asks the question of readers "what would YOU have done in their (everyday Germans of the 40s) place? Quite thought provoking.

[AnneB Posts: 3,808 Status: Offline]

A Brief History of Montmaray, by Michelle Cooper, and its two sequels. 16-year-old Sophia, her cousin the princess, and her uncle the king live on a fictional island kingdom between England and Spain during the run-up to WWII and then the war itself. Astonishingly good.

[Marissa Doyle Posts: 2,975 Status: Offline Charles Bewitched: out now! WWW]

CODE TALKERS by Joseph Bruchac

And who remembers SNOW TREASURE? It was wonderfully exciting, even if not as factual as it claimed to be.

[Liz Posts: 1,122 Status: Offline]

I LOVED!!  Snow Treasure.  My 4th grade teacher read it to us & I couldn't wait to find out what happened next.  Same for my class when I became a fourth grade teacher and read it to my students!

[Ev Posts: 3,521 Status: Offline Making learning fun! WWW]

I recommend Mirka Breen's MG historical fiction, THE VOICE OF THUNDER. It's set in Israel during the Six Day War and does a great job of viewing war from the perspective of middle grade kids.  (Mirka is one of our own Blueboarders. She was herself a middle grader in Israel during that war, so she writes from personal knowledge.)

[JulieM Posts: 945 Status: Offline WWW]

I just remembered I AM DAVID by Anne Holm. An oldie but a goodie.