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This book was first published in 1956. It is now in the Puffin Modern Classics series. It is the story of how one Polish family survived the Second World War.
The Balicki family live in Warsaw. At the beginning of the War the Nazis send the father away to a prison camp. A year later Nazi Storm Troopers come and take Mrs Balicki away too. Edek, her twelve year son, shoots at the van from the attic window. He wounds one of the soldiers in the arm and punctures one of the tyres of the van. His elder sister Ruth tells him how stupid he has been. Now the Nazis will come back for them too. Ruth and Edek take their little four year old sister Bronia and escape over the rooftops and are safely away when the Nazis come back and set the house on fire.
Meanwhile their father, Joseph, has escaped from the prison camp. He makes his way home but just finds a deserted ruin. He is told his children are probably dead. Then one day he finds a tiny silver sword. He recognises it. It is a paperknife which he had once given to his wife as a present. The ruins of his house have been claimed by an urchin Jan. Joseph gives Jan the silver sword and tells him that if he ever finds a Ruth, Edek or Bronia he is to tell them that their father is going to Switzerland to the home of their grandparents.
Meanwhile his children have been living as best they can. In winter they make their home in a cellar but in summer they go and live in the woods around Warsaw. In the city they eat at soup kitchens run by the Polish Welfare but in the woods they are given food by kindly peasants. Then one day Edek is caught smuggling food which is to be sold to Poles on the black market. Edek is sent to a prison camp leaving Ruth to care for Bronia on her own. Ruth does so and even manages to run a school. One day the children find a boy lying in the street. He is ill and starved. It is Jan. Ruth cares for him and comes across the silver sword and Jan tells her all he can remember about his meeting with her father.
The War ends and Ruth hears that Edek has been traced. She takes Bronia and Jan - who is now an honorary member of the family - and goes to find him. Then the four children set out on the long journey to Switzerland. They walk, get lifts in trucks and even travel part of the way in canoes on the Danube. The silver sword is their guide and lifeline.
The Silver Sword is founded on fact. The children are based on real children in Red Cross records. But in reality they are from different families. Children did live in cellars and jump the trucks of goods trains to steal food and of course the Swiss Pestalozzi Children's Village is world famous.
The Silver Sword shows the effect of the Second World War on the children of Europe. We are shown conditions in wartime Warsaw and, after the War, the plight of the thousands of refugees.
The Silver Sword gives a grimly realistic picture of Europe during and after the war. But despite everything it manages to remain a warm and sympathetic story. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the Second World War.
10 +
Another in the fictional My Story diary series.
France, 1943. Fourteen-year-old Paul Lelaud lives in a small town in the Loire Valley. His father was killed at the beginning of the War and Paul hates the Germans and despises those Frenchmen who, like his own Uncle Maurice, appear to go along with them. Paul believes that all good Frenchmen should fight the Germans and kill them.
Quick tempered and impetuous Paul attacks the Nazi-supporting schoolmaster. He is put in jail but is set free when his Uncle Maurice pays for him to be released. Then Paul is in for a big surprise. He discovers that his uncle is one of the leading members of the local resistance. Paul is invited to join. He is so hot headed that the resistance members are afraid he will draw the attention and anger of the Germans. If he becomes a member then they will be able to control him.
So Paul becomes a member of the local resistance. He helps to guide planes down at night to land British agents and he learns to operate a secret radio. But he finds that the hardest thing he has to do is to keep all this secret from his best friend.
This book brings out the wide difference between the resistance and the maquis. The resistance worked quietly helping British agents and escaped prisoners of war while the maquis waged open warfare by setting ambushes and blowing up railway lines. And the dreadful consequences of this are shown when the local policeman and a German soldier are killed. There is a detailed description of the German reprisals when all the townspeople are ordered to witness the shooting of twenty men chosen at random.
There is a thrilling climax when the resistance are trying to smuggle a defecting German general to Britain. The maquis hear of this and they are determined to capture him themselves. And the Germans are also hot on his trail. Young Paul has his own part to play in ensuring that the General is sent safely on his way.
This has a stronger story line than many of the My Story series and is one of the best of the series.
Comes with a time line, a historical note and contemporary photographs.
11+
This book was first published in 1989. It won the Newbery Award.
In 1940 Denmark surrendered to Germany and for the next five years Denmark was occupied by German soldiers. In 1943 the German government decided that all Jews in Denmark should be "relocated." G.F. Duckwitz, a high German official and a man of courage and compassion, passed this information to the Jewish rabbis who in turn passed it on to their people. This gave the Jews time to flee. They were hidden and helped by the Danes. Almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark - about seven thousand people - was smuggled in fishing boats across the Kattegat to Sweden. As well as showing incredible bravery the Danes were also very ingenious. Secret hiding places were created aboard the boats. Then the Nazis began to use police dogs to sniff out the refugees. Swedish scientists came up with a solution. They created a powerful powder made up of rabbit's blood and cocaine. The blood attracted the dogs and when they sniffed at it the cocaine destroyed, temporarily, their sense of smell. Almost every boat captain had a handkerchief permeated with this powder - just like the handkerchief that Annemarie took to her uncle in the story.
Number the Stars is a story written around these facts.
Ten year old Annemarie Johansen lives in an apartment in Copenhagen. She is very friendly with a girl of her own age who lives in the same apartment block - Ellen Rosen.
Annemarie has heard about the courageous resistance leaders who sometimes lost their lives. But courage is not for ordinary people like herself and Ellen. Annemarie is glad she is an ordinary person.
But Annemarie is soon to find out that in Germany under the Nazis ordinary people have a part to play too.
One evening Annemarie's father tells her that Ellen is to spend the night with them. She is to share Annemarie's room and pretend to be her sister. Ellen's parents are to spend the night with friends.
Then he tells Annemarie the whole story. They have heard that the Jews are going to be arrested. The Germans might come that very night.
From then on the story is one of almost unbearable tension. The Germans burst into the house and Annemarie suddenly realises that Ellen is still wearing the Star of David round her neck. Ellen cannot get the clasp undone. Later when they are on the train going to Uncle Henrik Annemarie is sure that her talkative, prattling little five year old sister Kirsti, is going to give them all away to the Germans. And finally Annemarie has to prove herself when she has to take the vital handkerchief to her uncle. She is stopped by the Germans and needs all her courage and wits.
This book is a worthy tribute to the bravery and ingenuity of the Danes who, despite the brutalising of their country by the Nazis, still managed to hold on to their humanity.
Comes with a useful historical note.
10 to adult
This book was first published in 1973.
It is a true story.
Eight-year-old Christel Goth is living in Vienna near the end
of the Second World War. Her home is destroyed by a bomb but her
family are lucky. A wealthy lady is fleeing the area and she wants
someone to go and stay in her summer house just outside Vienna
and look after it for her. Christel's mother agrees to this responsibility
and so Christel, her elder sister and her mother go to live in
the big house. Her father comes too but he is a deserter from
the German Army and he has to stay in hiding.
For a book about the Second World War this is a very gentle story.
The wealthy lady's daughter-in-law and her two children move in
with them and Christel and her sister make friends with the children
-- and eventually with the girl next door. They play in the neighbouring
field and make a school for the garden gnomes.They find a means
of supplementing their meagre diet. They break into an abandoned
house and find a store of preserved food in jars.
The Germans leave but they are soon followed by the Russians --
several of whom are billeted in the house. This would be all right
if it were not for the sergeant who gets drunk from time to time
and is a danger to everyone around him.
But the other Russians are not like that and Christel makes friends
with one of them -- Cohn the cook.
The book ends when the Russians move on and the Army of Occupation
take over and Christel has to move back reluctantly to Vienna.
A delightful book.
11 to adult.
At the beginning of the Second World War Jo is a twelve year old schoolboy and part time shepherd growing up in a little French village in the Pyrenees near the Spanish border. Even although his father is a prisoner of war in Germany to Jo the war is something distant and remote. Then the village is occupied by the Germans. Even that does not make too much difference as the German soldiers are old and their presence is not obtrusive. Some of the older men in the village find they have something in common with the Germans. They had both fought at Verdun. Later on we realise that the German soldiers are, themselves, victims. There is the kindly German coporal who helps Jo and who loses his own daughter in a bombing raid on Berlin.
Then the war starts to intrude on the little village. Just above the village is the farm of the widow Horcada. Jo learns that she is sheltering some Jewish children and a man called Benjamin who hopes to smuggle them across the border to Spain and safety. Jo helps them. Meanwhile the Germans conduct a search and the villagers realise that the Germans are indeed the enemy. Jo's father is sent home from Germany but he is not the father Jo remembers. His health is ruined and he is an embittered man.
The Jewish children still have to be smuggled to Spain. A dangerous plan is worked out. Every year the sheep are driven up to the high pastures. Can the Jewish children be disguised as shepherds?
Because of the nature of the story the true horrors of the Second World War are not brought out. They are kept in the background. When Benjamin and Leah, one of the children, are captured the reader is just told that they are sent to 'one of those camps.'
As well as telling a war story Michael Morpurgo also manages to give a delightful picture of a Pyrennean village - the sheep with their bells up in the high pasture, the huts of the shepherds, the high-flying eagles, the edelweiss, the blueberries, the scattered rocks and the silver stream. They all know that spring has arrived when the priest leaves the church door open so that the whole village can hear the organ. Europe may be devastated by war but in the village life must go on.
A worthy addition to the many books for children about the Second World War.
10+
Denmark during the Second World War.
Bamse is a member of a theatrical family. His mother is a famous actress and his father paints stage scenery. He is ten years old when the Germans invade Denmark. Bamse soon gets used to seeing the Germans marching all over but despite the occupation things go on much the same as usual. Bamse and his friend Anton still have to go to school and his mother still acts in the theatre.
Then Bamse finds out that his elder brother Orlando is a member of a Danish resistance group. Orlando starts giving Bamse and Anton little things to do. They listen to the BBC News every night on Anton’s parents’ radio, write down everything they hear and then take their notes to couriers or even to the printing works of the underground newspapers. Later they are given another task. They go to the main Copenhagen railway station and tape newsletters to the underside of freight trains bound for the Swedish ferries.
Then things become more serious. Orlando is arrested and word leaks out that the Germans are planning to round up all the Danish Jews and send them to the concentration camps. And Bamse’s best friend Anton is Jewish. But plans are made to smuggle the Jews to Sweden and Bamse’s family play their part and hide a number of Jews in their home –– and his father finds a new use for his painting skills.
In the last part of the book when Anton, his family and a group of refugees are being hidden from the Germans the tension mounts with every page. But apart from this section, this is a quieter story than most Second World War books. This is partly because it is told through the eyes of a young boy who was not allowed to know too much or to become too involved. But it is also because many of the German soldiers in Denmark were over fifty and they did not enforce the new laws with the brutality and savagery often employed elsewhere. Many of the Germans did not obey their orders regarding the Jews and they did not search the coastal trains taking the refugees to freedom. Indeed it was one of the top Germans who leaked the news about the plan to arrest the Jews. Indeed many of the Danish Nazis were much worse than the Germans.
This story is based loosely on the experiences of the author’s own father.
The reality of the German occupation of Denmark as seen through the eyes of a young boy.
Comes with a historical note.
10+
Budapest in the middle of the Second World War.
One afternoon nine year old Pali runs home from school. It is his turn to have the music room for practise and he wants to make sure that his elder brother does not cheat him out of his turn. But when Pali arrives home he finds the door open and the flat empty. There is no sign of his parents or his great aunt. Later his fifteen year old brother Peter, his sister Suzy and her friend David arrive and Pali finds out what has happened. His parents and aunt have been rounded up by the German soldiers and taken away. They had heard of such things happening but they had always told themselves that it could not happen in Hungary. Hungary was too civilised, too cultured. Pali's parents were respected concert violinists and Pali's father did not have to wear the yellow star like other Jews. This lulled the family into a false sense of security.
The children stay in the flat by themselves and manage as best they can. They still practise their music but they use mutes. Their father used to tell them that they are "the children of Bach" and they must play some Bach every day as that is the way to become a musician.
Then Aunt Eva comes back. She has managed to give the Germans the slip. Her presence makes the children feel better. They also appreciate her cooking. But what are they to do? Just wait for the Germans to come for them?
Mrs Rossi, one of their neighbours, supplies the answer. Mrs Rossi is Italian and she hears things from her own country. There are many places in Italy where Jews are hidden. Mrs Rossi's family come from a little village in the mountains in north eastern Italy. If she could get them there they would be safe.
She has a plan but it is a dangerous one. It is to smuggle them out of Budapest and out of Hungary in a van delivering furniture to a German officer. A little room has been created in the middle of the furniture.
The plan is put into operation. There is not much room so they cannot take much with them, but they do manage to take two of the violins. The van sets of and we share the increasing tension of the family. At one point the engine breaks down and they have to be hidden in a village while repairs are made. Then at the frontier a German guard says that he will have to search the van properly and all the furniture will have to be taken out.
An intense, gripping story of one Jewish family escaping from the holocaust. By focusing attention on the very believable young musicians this dreadful event is put in a human context.
10+
Rick Weston is the son of an Italian mother and an English father. Although brought up in England he has spent many holidays in the little Italian village of Sant' Arpino high up in the Appenines where his archaeologist father was excavating some Roman remains. This means that as well as being bilingual Rick also speaks Italian with a local accent.
In 1943 this means that Rick could be very useful to the British war effort. The allied forces are preparing to invade Sicily and then cross to Italy and advance northwards. Rick is recruited by the S.O.E. - the Special Operations Executive - to make contact, and work with, local resistance groups to help to prepare the ground for the allied advance.
Rick is parachuted into Italy, spends some time with an Italian family on a remote farm, is arrested by the Carabinieri, escapes and joins the resistance group led by the Communist Rossi. He takes part in the rescue of a trainload of British prisoners of war, photographs German documents in the local castle and helps to rescue his own part-time helper, Lina Scarlatti from the Gestapo.
Believable characters and an exciting story which throws light on the S.O.E. and the Italian resistance. There is even the hint of a romance. What more can any reader ask for?
10+
Richard is forbidden to go near his neighbour Stefan Wassilewska or his strange house. Then one day Richard's mother leaves her family. After this Richard makes friends with Stefan. He finds that Stefan had lost his own mother when he was just a little older than Richard. Stefan tells Richard his story and Richard begins to come to terms with the changes in his own life.
In 1940 many Poles are rounded up by the Russians and deported to Siberia. Fourteen year old Stefan and his mother and young brother are among them. They spend a year on the Steppe. Then Russia is invaded by Germany. The Russian government "pardons" the Poles and tells them they can form an army to fight the Germans. Stefan, his mother and brother all leave the village on the Steppe. On the journey south they are separated. Stefan is carried south on the train while his mother and brother are left stranded at a station. Stefan is never to see them again. He spends the rest of his life feeling guilty. He should have made a determined effort to join them.
Stefan joins the Polish Army and learns to drive a truck. He drives all over the Middle East. Finally he takes part in the assault on Monte Cassino. After the war Poland is occupied by the Russians and Stefan realises that he can never return home. He has to make a new life for himself in a new country.
This is a war story and the hardships are not shirked - the ever present lice, poverty, starvation, disease - the woman with blood seeping through the bandages covering the ulcers on her legs. But there are also many pleasanter passages which we can really enjoy -- like the descriptions of the forest near the village in which Stefan lived as a boy. 'so very beautiful and bright with frost and snow that is blue under the moonlight.' And the sleigh rides, and the skating and skiing. And then later the descriptions of the Steppe, harsh in winter but in summer with a beauty of its own with irises on the ground, and, in the sky flocks of migrating storks.
This is not just the story of Stefan. It is also the story of Voytek, an orphan bear cub which was rescued by the Polish soldiers. They were allowed to keep him as a mascot and he meant a great deal to them. He reminded them of the warmth and safety of home and family. They turned to the odd little bear cub for comfort and entertainment. The cub grew into an adult bear but he always remained very gentle. He shared the soldiers' tents and food and played with them and even went swimming with them. After the war Voytek was taken to Edinburgh Zoo. He adapted very well to his new life in a cage and gave Stefan, and later, Richard, courage to adapt to the changes in their lives too.
Voytek is not fictional. This part of the story is true.
When they were on the Steppe Stefan's mother used to look up at the stars and say that wherever the rest of her family were she hoped that they could still look up and see the stars. Years later Richard does just that when he thinks of his own mother. And he tells his young brother to do the same.
It would be useful if this book could be read in conjunction with The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig.
There are many books for children about the Second World War being published just now. And The Stars were Gold is rather different. And rather special.
10+
Three American school children are doing
a school project on the Second World War. They are supposed to
talk to an old person about it. They hear that a painter, Marcel
Delarue, grew up in France at that time and they write to him
and ask him to tell them about the War. They particularly want
to know if he did anything 'awesome' like hiding gold from the
Nazis.
Marcel Delarue answers their letter and gives an account of how
the War affected him. But his story is quite different from what
the children were expecting.
Marcel was the youngest of three brothers. They lived with their
mother in a village in the French countryside and the War did
not affect them too much -- even if there were German soldiers
in the village. And later the Jews who have sought refuge in the
village are all rounded up. But this does not stop the boys from
carrying on with their daily lives, collecting the milk, riding
bicycles, going fishing -- and telling lies. Their parents had
both told them never to tell lies but the boys felt that they
must have one rule which they can break so they told lies. And
they tried to make them as imaginative as possible.
Their mother tried to keep them virtuous and punished every little
fib but she herself was hiding a dangerous secret and she told
the biggest lie of all. But it was a good lie.
After reading the account one of th children writes to Marcel
thanking him. She says that what she likes about his story is
that does not make himself out to be a hero. He was just an ordinary
kid.
"It makes me think that history happens to ordinary people.
That history is even happening to me, right now, even if I don't
know it."
An interesting and unusual story about the Second World War. It
is written in a quiet style which makes it all the more effective.
8 - 12
This book is one of A&C's World War II Flashbacks.
In 1940 twelve-year-old Jean is living in Paris with his mother. His father is a prisoner of war in Germany.
As the War progresses Jean's mother thinks he would be better off with his uncle in the south of France. It is not just the food shortages. She is frightened that the Germans will force him to work for them -- particularly after the passing of the STO law, or Service Travail Obligatoire. So a friend of his uncle's comes to take Jean to his farm outside Villefranche.
Once there, young as he is, Jean finds he has some hard thinking to do and some difficult decisions to make.
His cousin Philippe supports the Maquis and later goes and joins them. But there are those who say that the Maquis are just bandits and deserters and Jean's uncle tells him that if the Germans are driven out of France it will be due to the Allies and not the Maquis.
Philippe tells Jean,
"You're either for us or against us."
But is it that simple? Jean does not want to become a thief. He also knows that the Germans often shoot innocent people as reprisals for sabotage.
Then there is also the fact that Paul Lurcat, his uncle's friend, is a black marketeer.
Jean has another cousin, Nina. She goes to work for the Germans in the chateau. She becomes friendly with the young German captain and later becomes secretly engaged to him.
Jean has to decide when is the right moment to fight the Germans.
Against this background of conflicting opinions is a story of action involving a meeting with the Maquis in their hidden camp in the forest and a sabotage raid on the radio room in the chateau.
This book is written almost entirely in the present tense. It is short and the style and vocabulary makes it easy reading. But the story and ideas should hold the interest of any young person up to the age of twelve.
This book should certainly appeal to boys although girls should enjoy it too.
This is a book which asks a lot of questions.
8 - 12
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