The Watcher by Joan Hiatt Harlow

It's 1942 in Berlin, Germany.  Wendy has just arrived in Berlin with her newly found mother, Adrie.  Wendy's grown up her whole life in America and speaks no German.  As happy as she is to be with Adrie, it is hard for Wendy to transition to being a German girl.  The war, which seemed so remote in America, is the focus of everything in Berlin, and many things Wendy doesn't understand.  It seems she has two choices.  She can close her eyes to what's happening, or she can do something about it.

The Watcher is a companion novel to Shadows on the Sea, which I hadn't read.  Wendy was a supporting character in that book, and I guess at the end she disappears with her newly discovered mother to Germany.  I went a lot of the book thinking that it was going to turn out that Adrie wasn't actually Wendy's real mother, that it was a trick to get Wendy to Germany because they needed an American girl for some secret task.  Adrie works for the German military intelligence unit as a spy.  I guess if I'd read the other book I would have know that it was true that Adrie was Wendy's real mother.  Although honestly, I think it would have made more sense if my idea had ended up being true.

This book didn't work for me very well.  I thought it was confusing and choppy.  I didn't think it made sense for Adrie to decided that 1942 was the time to let Wendy know she was her real mother and bring her to Germany.  Even if she was completely convinced Germany was going to win the war.  Why wouldn't she have waited until after?  The story of Wendy's father didn't really make sense.  Wendy's father was Jewish and they were married briefly but then her father was jailed and Adrie got a divorce and someone was able to make it look like their marriage had never happened and then Adrie got remarried and his name is the name on Wendy's birth certificate, but then Adrie decided to send her daughter to America to be safe, and also to pretend that she was her aunt and that her sister and her husband were Wendy's parents.  Yeah.  Confusing.  And also, it's Germany.  You think a member of the Germany military intelligence unit wouldn't have been carefully investigated and it wouldn't have been found out she was married to a Jew?  I don't think so.

So the whole premise I found a bit shaky.  I liked that the book focused on a couples aspects of WWII that many people would not have heard about.  Wendy ends up volunteering at a Lebensborn Nursery.  These were places were children who had been kidnapped from other countries because they had the correct Aryan look were taken to be raised to be good German citizens.  Lebensborn also housed the children of unwed German women and German soldiers who had been approved as having German ancestors.  The children born were taken from their mothers and were considered to belong to the state.  At the nursery, Wendy meets Johanna, a girl who has been assigned to Lebensborn for "reeducation."  She is a Jehovah's Witness (Bibelforscher), one of the many groups considered undesirable by the Nazis.  All Johanna would have to do would be to sign a piece of paper swearing her loyalty to Hitler and Germany and renouncing her religion, but she refuses to do so.

As Wendy befriends Johanna and realizes that Johanna could be sent off to a concentration camp, or killed, for refusing to renounce her religion, Wendy begins to question whether her plan of ignoring the bad things happening around her is going to be possible.  Wendy also becomes friends with a blind young man she meets in the park, whose grandfather knows all about Wendy's real father.  Wendy also adopts a German Shepard puppy that couldn't make it as an SS dog.

Wendy decides she must escape from Germany and get back to the United States, and the rest of the book is planning and executing the escape.  I didn't find it especially gripping or interesting.

So, thumbs up on looking at aspects of WWII that we don't often see in middle grade books.  But the books itself I would pass on.

The Watcher comes out November 4, 2014.

I Remember Beirut by Zeina Abirached

Zeina Abirached, who wrote the beautiful and poignant A Game for Swallows writes another graphic novel of wartime memories.

In A Game of Swallows, Abirached tells the story of  her time growing up during the civil war in Lebanon.  It was more of a tradition telling of her life during that time.  In I Remember Beirut, Abirached simply tells things she remembers.

"I remember when there was no electricity or gas, we used kerosene for heating."  "I remember traffic jams."  "I remember how to fold a paper boat."  Each of these memories relates to a larger event or experience Abirached recalls from the time of the war.

It paints a detailed picture of everyday life for a child during this time.  It also allows us to see the things that Abirached remembers and considers important as an adult, and in some cases, how they impacted her.

What I've loved about Abirached's graphic novels is that the simple and straightforward way they are told allows them to be appropriate for a middle grade audience.  Her graphic novels are an excellent way to help a younger child understand war the effects it has on the children, or to explore how another child's life can be so different from their own.

The illustrations are impactful.  Done in black and white, and fitting with the story, simple in detail, the panels and full page illustrations further show the impact these events had on Abirached's life.

I Remember Beirut comes out October 1, 2014.

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman

Vidya is growing up in British occupied India during 1941.  She loves school and sports and her family.  When a tragedy hits her family that Vidya blames herself for, her family must move in with her extended family, who is very traditional.  The men live upstairs, and the women live downstairs and serve the men.  Vidya is afraid that soon she'll be married off and never finish school or fulfill her dream of going to college.

This looked at a side of history we rarely see: India during WWII.  India is still under British rule, and England is involved in the war.  There were all-Indian troops under British leadership that are rarely heard about.

While WWII is going on, India is involved in their own fight for freedom against British rule.  Lead by Gandhi, this fight was largely a non-violent one.  Vidya's father strongly believes in the non-violent approach, although Vidya's brother questions whether it is the right way.

The War Within These Walls by Aline Sax, illustrated by Caryl Strzelecki

A young boy and his family are forced into the Warsaw ghetto, along with all the Jews of Poland.  After years, the Nazis prepare to liquidate the ghetto, and some of the Jews prepare to fight back.

It's not a graphic novel, exactly.  Although I think I'd shelve it with graphic novels, because I think that's where someone would look for it.  It's more an illustrated novels.  It's a beautifully put together book.  The words and illustrations are kept separate.  I found this allowed me to focus deeply on both words and images without getting distracted by one or the others.  Sometimes words appeared on black pages, all alone.  Sometimes the text was very short, other times it would be a whole page.

The illustrations were powerful.  They were done in black and white and were made up of hundreds of individual line strokes.  The illustrations were so full of emotion.  You could feel the pain and despair, the hopelessness and darkness these people were feeling.

In the story we follow the young boy and his family, first as the Nazis move into Poland and restrictions are put on Jews, and then to the entire Jewish population being moved into the ghetto.  The ghetto was so crowded, and there was so little food coming in, everyone was slowing starving to death, or being wiped out by disease.  People actually volunteered to get on the Nazi trucks (which took them to concentration camps) in the hopes they were being taken somewhere better.

The boy uses the sewers to sneak out of the ghetto and bring food to his family, until the Nazis begin using flame throwers to kill the smugglers in the sewers.  Then he is afraid to do anything, until he meets Mordechai Anielewicz, who is organizing Jews to fight back.  They know they cannot win, but they decided they will not quietly submit to death any longer.

Very powerful and beautifully done.

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

American ATA pilot Rose Justice is flying an Allied fighter plane from Paris to England for repairs when she is captured by the Nazis.  She is sent to Ravensbruck, a women's concentration camp where women have been used like rats for medical experimentation.

This was a companion book to Code Name Verity.  It picks up not long after the events of Code Name Verity, in 1945.  It focuses on a new character, Rose, but Rose works for the same Air Transport Auxiliary organization that Julie did and where Maddie still is.

I had some issues with Code Name Verity, mainly the framing device.  I just couldn't buy into it, and while I thought it was great how it all came together, I never really got into it because I found the whole premise completely improbable.  I was worried it would be the same with this one.  The book blurb tells us that Rose is captured and sent to a concentration camp.  I was worried that Rose was actually going to be journaling from the camp!  But she was not.  The diary starts before she's captured, and after she escapes uses her journal to tell her story.

There were a couple instances that took me out of the story and didn't seem to fit in with the terrible realism the story was showing.  The dramatic sacrifice one of the girls makes for Rose, for example.  Rose's number is called and she knows that means she's going to sent to be gassed.  This happened to other girls before, and they were hidden, which is what happens for Rose.  But this time, for some reason, another girl has to sacrifice herself by wearing Rose's number.  Why didn't they cause confusion, like the other times they hid people?  Why didn't they just let the count come out wrong, like the other times?  It seemed like that scene was just there so Rose would feel the weight of someone else's death personally.

The escape was also kind of overly dramatic and unlikely, with Rose and Irina stealing a plane and dragging Roza aboard and crash landing in Belgium.  It would have been more realistic if they had hidden in the outer camp and waited until it was liberated by the Soviets.

Despite that, it was well done.  And it looked at a camp that doesn't often get a lot of attention, Ravensbruck.  This is probably because Ravensbruck wasn't actually a death camp, but a work camp, but was also where experimentation of prisoners went on.  The conditions of the camp were horrifying, as is the story of the Ravensbruck "rabbits," the women who were experimented on.

Something that Rose struggles with afterwards is her promise to tell the other girls' stories.  She wants to, but she's afraid.  She doesn't know how to make people understand what went on there.  The things that she saw, and the things that she did herself, no regular person could ever, ever possibly understand.  She promised to tell the world, but she can't even tell her closest friends.  

Rose finds her strength when she attends the Doctors' Trials in Nuremberg and sees her friends testifying against the people that did the terrible things to them.

Those who liked Code Name Verity will love that they can find out what happens to Maddie, as well as continuing on with the story that takes them through the end of the war.  Rose Under Fire stands well on it's own, and is a great recommendation for lovers of historical fiction.

The Property by Rutu Modan

After the death of her father, Mica and her paternal grandmother Regina Segal travel to Warsaw in an attempt to claim property lost during WWII.  Regina has not been back to Poland since she was sent away to Israel before WWII.  But Regina is carrying a secret.  She has other reasons for coming to Warsaw.

Rutu Modan is the author of Exit Wounds, which is on my "to read" list and had a lot of positive buzz when it came out.  There's been lots of buzz about The Property too, and it's started showing up on "best of 2013" lists.

We have two parallel stories happening, Mica's and Regina's.  Mica doesn't know what her grandmother's actual purpose in Warsaw is.  All she knows is that her grandmother initially wanted to come to Warsaw to claim this property, but upon arrival she wants nothing to do with it.  Mica sets out to find the property herself.  She has to deal with a snoopy and interfering friend of her aunt's (who has plans of his own) and meets a young Polish man.  All while trying to figure out what on earth is going on with her grandmother.

Spoilers

Hostage Three by Nick Lake

Since the death of her mother, Amy has coped by acting out, secretly hoping for her father's attention, to no avail.  But suddenly her father decides he, Amy, and her stepmother will all go on a summer-long trip on their newly purchased yacht.  Amy is actually enjoying herself, but then the boat is seized by a group of Somali pirates.  Now Amy and her family are hostages in a complex negotiation, made even more confusing and she begins to grow close to one of the pirates.

Nick Lake is the author of this year's Printz winner In Darkness.  Like In Darkness, he uses dashes rather than quotations to denote people speaking, which I find annoying and sometimes confusing. 

Amy isn't a particularly likable of sympathetic character, especially at the beginning.  Even though she's in a crappy situation, she doesn't help us to feel for her.  As we get to know her and what really happened with her and her mother she becomes more of a person we can relate to, but, for me, I never truly connected with her character.

The book did a great job, in a completely non-preachy and non-judgmental way, of showing why someone might take on a life of piracy.  The complexities of the situation were very well explained in conversations between Amy and Farouz, the young pirate she develops a relationship with.  We hear about how Somalia is a place of drought and constant war.  How Farouz's parents were killed in one war or another and how his brother, who had always taken care of him, has been imprisoned and in order to provide bail, Farouz has turned to piracy.  There is little other choice if you need money.

Piracy was not excused, but by the end of the book you could certainly sympathize with the people who were doing it.  Some of the pirates seemed like good people, and some did not, as people are.  Not all of them were there for noble reasons like trying to free your brother from jail.

Amy and Farouz develop a romantic relationship.  This is of course very confusing for Amy, who isn't sure she can trust Farouz.  Would he shoot her if he were told to?  Does he care about her enough to disobey orders?  Despite these rather large issues, she goes forward.  It seemed like Amy just wanted someone to care about her.  She had felt alone and isolated for so long, and now here was someone to care about her and talk to.  It didn't mater that the situation was crazy and their relationship was impossible.

Like In Darkness, I didn't find myself engaged in the book.  It was good, I liked it, but it also dragged for me.  Still recommend it for it's thoughtful and seldom heard prospective.

Hostage Three comes out October 15, 2013.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Verity, a British secret agent, has been captured in France by the Gestapo.  There she is questioned and forced to reveal her mission.  Verity begins to tell her story, starting with her friend Maddie, a girl who dreamed of flying airplanes, to her own beginnings as a secret agent, to how she ended up alone in France.

The second half made the first half good.  It certainly was very cool to see how everything suddenly came together and made sense.  However, it didn't fix some glaring issues for me.  The entire first section of the book I was mostly just confused.  I couldn't understand what the point was.  Why was she writing this?  She was giving zero helpful information that the Nazi could actually use.  Why was she allowed to write it?  Why on Earth would she be allowed to write it in a narrative form?  It would be a waste of time and resources.  It was difficult for me because the entire premise of the book didn't make sense to me: That Verity would be writing this narrative of how she ended up a prisoner.

The second part, from Maddie's point of view also didn't really make sense.  For a girl that was so concerned about doing things the regulation way, and feared getting other people captured and killed, she would really have kept a detailed narrative of her time, with names of the people that helped her and exactly how they carried out their plans?  I know, I know.  Literary license, and we needed them to write it all down, or else how would we know?  But...I couldn't get passed it.  All the trouble has been gone to to create a realistic sense of place, except for this one thing the whole book revolves around wouldn't have actually happened.

If you can get past that, it's certainly a good story and great to see how everything comes together perfectly.  It was certainly good storytelling and good writing.  I enjoyed reading it.  I don't want to say too much about it, because it really was great how it all came together.  I made me go back to Verity's section a few times to see what she had written and how it matched up with what Maddie was revealing.

This was one of the Printz honor books, and I can see why it was chosen.  But man, it sure did bug me the whole time that the set up was how Verity was writing her confession.  In novel form.

In Darkness by Nick Lake

 A boy lived in the Site in Haiti, a place of extreme poverty and violence.  Injured in a gun fight, he is in a hospital when the earthquake happens, trapping him beneath the building.  He remembers all that has happened to land him in this darkness, and his memories are interspersed with the memories of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the revolutionary leader who helped to free Haiti.

In Darkness just won the Printz award, so I had high expectations.  And it was a good book.  It was brutal and honest and thought provoking.  It told the story of modern Haiti, as well as telling the history of Haiti.  Despite this, it was just a good book, not an awesome, amazing book, at least for me.  It took me a while to get through it, because it just wasn't a book the grabbed me and held me riveted.  It was easy to put down.

You know what was really interesting?  I only realized that the main character's actual name is never given when I went to write this review and realized I didn't know what to call him.  He's called a variety of things throughout the book, but none of them are his actual name.  In the book blurb, he is referred to as "Shorty," which he is often called by the member of his gang, so I guess I will call him that too for lack of anything better.

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

Arn is young when the Khmer Rouge comes to power in Cambodia.  Along with his family and all the residents of his city, he is forced out to the countryside, separated from everyone he knows, and sent to work in the rice fields.  All around him Arn watches as people begin to starve.  When the children are asked if anyone knows how to play an instrument, Arn says he can, even though he's never played anything before.  Perhaps this will be they way that he can survive.

I'd never read any fiction about Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, and now within a year I've read two excellent ones.  Much like In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner, Never Fall Down is a novel that is based on a true story.  Patricia McCormick worked closely with Arn Chorn-Pond to tell his story.  But just as Ratner felt, Chorn-Pond thought there were too many holes in his childhood memories to write a memoir.

Arn is not well off when the story begins, he and his brother beg for food on the street, but they used to be rich.  Arn has to make sure that no one ever finds this out, because rich people, academics, royals, government soldiers, all were systematically killed by the Khmer Rouge.

The Wicked and the Just by J. Anderson Coats

Cecily grew up at Edgeley Hall in England, but when her uncle comes back from the Crusades, her father decides, rather than acting as his brother's steward, he will move to Caernarvon in English occupied Wales where he can own his own land and house.  Cecily is less than happy about moving to barbaric Wales.  Gwenhwyfar's life was destroyed by the coming of the English.  Her people are starving around her, and she is forced to work in a house and on land she once owned.

This was heavy.  Seriously heavy.  This is a middle grade book, but I want to be clear that the violence and assault that happens is detailed.  Not in a sensationalized way, but certainly graphic.

This was another period of history I knew very little about.  In the later 1200s, Wales pretty much became a colony of England, under King Edward.  Stone cities were built that English colonists could live in, effective protected from the Welsh people by guarded stone walls.  Of course, there were rebellions, and the one The Wicked and Just details was the first one, which happened in 1294 and was led by Madog ap Llywelyn.

A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return by Zeina Abirached

The Lebanese civil war has been going on since before Zeina was born.  It is a daily part of life.  Because of the bombings, Zeina, her little brother and mother and father live in the foyer; the only safe space in the apartment.  One evening, Zeina's parents go to visit her grandparents, and have not returned as bombing intensifies.  The other tenants from the building come down to keep watch over Zeina and her brother.

It amazing how things can just become part of everyday life.  The fact that there were snipers hiding at the end of your street, and you have to walk a certain way so you won't get hit.  The fact that bombings are any everyday occurrence, and sometimes people die, or your home gets destroyed.  That it takes hours to get a dial tone on the phone, that you can't go near windows, that you wait on long lines for gas.  And somehow there's still the belief that it's "more or less safe" there.  Because it's home, and that's how things have always been.

The foyer of Zeina's apartment is the safest place in the apartment building, so usually all the other tenants make their way down to them during heavy bombing.  Zeina's parents are not there, having gone to visit her grandparents.  But they left an hour ago, and haven't shown up yet.  All through the night, the tenants and children find ways to amuse themselves.  The adults also show differing opinions on what course of action should be taken in regards to the war.  Fight, leave, wait.

That evening, a shell lands in what was Zeina's bedroom, and the next day everyone has to find new places to go.  A few leave Lebanon, but most find other people to stay with.  Despite the constant danger, most do not seriously think about leaving.

The illustrations are striking.  Done in black and white, the pictures are deceptively simple.  The first few pages are of the streets, and it took me a minute to realize that there were bullet holes everywhere.  It just kind of blends in.  The style reminded me a lot of Persepolis.  

Much like Little White Duck, this is another excellent middle grade level book that allows young people to see what life is like for children growing up outside of the United States.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples

The native people of the planet Landfall and the native people of Landfall's moon, Wreath, have been at war for generations.  Much of the galaxy has been pulled into the war and forced to chose sides.  Alana and Marko are from opposite sides, but fall in love, run off together, get married and now have had a child.  And now both sides want them dead.

I had heard nothing but good things about Saga.  I finally read it.  It was just as awesome as everyone said it was.  More!  I need more!  And now, please and thank you.  I read the trade paperback, which collects issues 1-6.  There are currently 8 issues out, with the 9 coming out this month.

How can I begin to extol the awesomeness of Saga?  First off Alana and Marko are great characters.  Yes, they have the whole star-crossed lovers thing, but not in an annoying stupid I-can't-live-without-you kind of way.  Although they clearly love each other very much.  They are an equal team, they have each other's back, they are very funny, and they are going to save their child if it's the last thing they ever do.  Alana is tough.  She has a sarcastic edge to here.  Marko seems to be the more introspective and thoughtful, but Alana is the one who pulls him back when he goes into a rage.  Their relationship seems so natural and genuine.  You know, they really seem to care and like each other.

The world is really interesting and I'm looking forward to learning more about it.  There are all different sorts of creatures in this world, since there are all sorts of planets involved in the war.  Alana's people, from Landfall have wings, but don't seem to be able to fly.  Marko's people, from Wreath, have horns and have some kind of magical ability.  There's also a strange planet of robots (but robots that can procreate?  Interesting) with televisions as heads.  The prince of the robot kingdom is one of the one's hunting down Alana and Marko.  He also seems to be suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome after being in a particularly  gruesome battle.

Then there are the bounty hunters that have been sent to search for Alana, Marko, and their child, who after much discussion is named Hazel.  The two we meet in volume 1 is The Stalk and The Will.  The Stalk is this incredible looking body of a spider, armless torso and head of women but with spider eyes being, and The Will seems to be a human.  The Will is a confusing man.  He's paid to kill people, but is also trying to free a six-year-old child from the sex-slave trade.

Fiona Staples' illustrations are great, as always.  There's always such detail.  People have facial expressions that fit with their personalities.  People have different kinds of body types.  Not everyone looks the same.  The world around the characters are drawn with as much detail as the characters themselves.  With scenes that are provocative, it never feels explicit or done to titillate.  There is a sex scenes between he robot prince and his wife.  The Stalk is topless.  But these things are not sensationalized.  They just are.  They are part of the world, and they are not there purely to thrill the reader.

Hand shakes all around.  Everyone should read it.  Yes, everyone.  And I need to find myself the next issue.

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

In the sequel to Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou has now taken Brimstone's place as the resurrectionist and is building an army for the Wolf, the war leader of the chimaera.  Karou feels she has to do whatever she can to avenge her people, even when she questions how the revenge is taking place.  Akiva is still a solider, whose job is to kill chimaera, but he resists, struggling with the idea that redemption might still be possible for them all.

Amazing.  Loved it.  I want more.  Right now.  So freaking good.  I admit I did a little skipping around to find out what happened.  It was one of those books that has multiple stories going on in alternating chapters and sometimes I JUST WANTED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AND COULDN'T WAIT.  So I was forced to skip ahead.  I had no choice.  Oh it was good.

It has been a while since I read Daughter of Smoke & Bone, and realized as I started reading this one I'd forgotten a lot of stuff.  Important stuff.  Like how things were left between Karou and Akiva, and how Brimstone died.  You know, things like that.  It mostly came back as I read, but I think I'd like to read the first one again.  I'm sure I'm still forgetting things.  So if it's been a while since you've read Daughter of Smoke & Bone, you might want to give yourself a refresher.  Laini Taylor does not waste time rehashing what happened last time.  We are moving forward full steam ahead.

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Hatner

Raami is seven in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge forces everyone to leave the cities of Cambodia.  Raami, along with the hundreds of thousands forced from the cities, are put into work camps in peasant villages all over Cambodia.  With people dying all around her from starvation or from be suspected of being against the Organization, Raami struggles to survive and stay with what is left of her family.

This was pretty amazing.  It was hard to read, but beautifully done.  Vaddey Hatner chose to write a novel rather than a memoir because she was 5 years old in 1975.  She wanted to have the freedom to tell the story, but everything that happened to Raami happened to Vaddey.

My knowledge of the Khmer Rouge and what happened in Cambodia was very limited.  I knew about Pol Pot, and that millions of Cambodians died, and that was about it.  The problem with history in high school is that no one every gets past the 60s and the Vietnam War.  As we get further and further away from the 60s, we're missing out on learning about a growing chunk of history.  After I'd read the first chapter of In the Shadow of the Banyan I had to stop and go do a bit of background research so I would have a little foundation for understanding.

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

Mahlia and her friend Mouse are war refugees.  Mouse saved Mahlia after the Army of God cut off one of her hands.  The two fled the Drowned Cities and have been living on the outskirts where it's safer.  But not safe.  They discover a wounded half-man, a born killer that the army is after.  They strike up a deal, they will help the half-man Tool, and in exchange, he will help them run north.  When Mouse is captured and recruited into the army, Mahlia must decide what the right thing to do is: run and save herself, or go after Mouse and face almost certain death.

So good.  So depressing.  Oh man, so depressing.  But so good.  Dystopias are depressing in general, but this hit harder than most other ones I've read.  This world seemed more feasible, more real.  Most other dystopias don't actually have a sense of possible reality for me.  But wow, did this one.  So depressed.

Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess

London has been abandoned by the rest of the world. For generations now, London has been ruled by two warring gang lords, the Volsons, controlled by Val and his four children, and their rival, Conor. Now, Val plans to marry off his only daughter to Conor to form a treaty between the two. Val dreams that with the humans united, they will be able to break through the circle of halfman that surround London and move out into the world. At first, it seems that the treaty might actually work, but there's always the danger of betrayal...