Year of No Rain

Eleven-year-old Stephen Majok lives in a small Sudanese village.  When he is not playing with his friends he tends his family’s two cows. His father had become a soldier when he was just a baby and had never come back.  One of his best friends, fourteen-year-old Wol, becomes engaged to his sister.  He wants to marry before he joins the guerrillas in southern Sudan fighting against the northern government soldiers simply so she can remember him. It’s a war that Stephen doesn’t want to go looking for, he just wants to study but with the war school hasn’t been in session for over a year.

But the war soon finds him anyways, as his village is bombed from government soldiers.  His mother tells him to pack his back with his most valued possessions and run into the forest with his friend Wol.  His mother and sister stay behind.  In the forest, they face hunger, thirst,  and fear that their family has been killed.  Orphans they yearn for home but wander unsure of where to go or who to trust.

A story of how children are caught up and affected in a horrible war.  Stephen is a character whom readers can easily sympathize with.  It’s easily written and perfect for young readers who are discovering the stories of people outside of their life circle and culture.  It’s one that will elicit discussion about the ill effects of war, brutality, hunger, thirst, and the power of the individual, optimism, and the hunger for stability, family, love, and education.

Links of interest: Alice Mead website, more book blogger reviews. I read this book as part of the water theme for the Social Justice Challenge.
Genre: Middle Grade Fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Perfection Learning. January 2005.
Hardcover, 129 pages. ISBN 0756951585
Source copy: Own
Year of No Rain is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Although their lives are now less at risk then if they had stayed in Germany, with each move comes its own set of challenges.  Anna just wants to make friends and attend school.  Learning each new language is difficult and adjusting to living with less and less isn’t easy.   What Anna and her brother learn is it doesn’t matter where you live, what really matters is being together as a family.

“Difficult childhood . . . ” she thought.  The past and the present slid apart.  She remembered the long, weary journey from Berlin with Mama, how it had rained, and how she had read Gunther’s book and wished for a difficult childhood to that she might one day become famous.  Had her wish then come true?  Could her life since she had left Germany really be described as a difficult childhood?

She thought of the flat in Paris and the Gasthof Zwirn.  No, it was absurd. Some things had been difficult,  but it had always been interesting and often funny – and she and Man and Mama and Papa had nearly always been together. As long as they were together she could never have a difficult childhood.

An excellent novel on the refugee experience for a child and one to introduce young children to the concept of war and it’s effects on families.

Links of interest: more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Historical middle grade fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile.  Reprint November 10, 1997.  Originally published 1971.
Paperback, 191 pages. ISBN 0698115899
Source copy: Library
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Brother is an odd nickname for a boy but it fits twelve-year-old Ignatius well.  After all he is the younger brother of four older brothers who are all in college,the army or boarding school but whom come home to help out on their ranch during breaks.  Brother’s dad is called up for a 14-month tour of Iraq with the National Guard which leaves Brother in the care of his grandparents on the ranch.

Now the man of the house and desperately missing his father, he wants to prove that he can take care of the ranch without the help of his older brothers. But ranching has never really been his thing anyways.  Although he knows how to do the work well, he wonders if  ranching is really what he wants to do for the rest of his life.  During the year that his father is gone and the resulting trials, Brother learns a lot about himself, family dynamics, responsibilities, loyalties, and a lot about his faith.

I really liked this following passage  in which his friends mother, who has returned from Iraq, is speaking:

“Don’t confuse the right thing with the easy thing, Brother. Sometimes choosing what’s right for you breaks your heart.” She crushes out her cigarette on the step.  Her hand retreats back up her sleeve and she gives a little shrug. “A person can live a little bit broken,” she says.  “Most of us do, I guess.”

The grandfather is a fantastic character too.  Great relationship between the two.  A beautiful book.  This little short review doesn’t really touch upon the subtlety of its many topics very well.  A great book for boys too.  Always on the lookout for that.  And definitely one that speaks up to children and really gets them thinking.  Most highly recommended.

Links of interest: Rosanne Parry website,  more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers.  January 27, 2009
Hardcover, 176 pages.  ISBN 0375848029
Source copy: Library
Heart of a Shepherd is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Two years ago, twelve-year-old Matt, the son of a American soldier and a Vietnamese woman, is airlifted out of his home country of Vietnam and adopted by an American family.  He wakes up often with nightmares, but his adoptive mother and father are there to help sooth him.  They are able to give him the love and attention that he needs.  But he has many adjustments to make and must come to terms with his inner turmoil and guilt from leaving his country, his mother, his little brother, confusion over a father who abandoned them, misunderstanding over his mother who gave him away and apprehension over the love that is now shown to him from a wonderful family.

He was born in the war.  His entire life was the war.

He must also face his schoolmates who associate Matt with the war and their brothers and fathers who never came home.  Matt’s baseball coach and piano teacher both help heal the rift in Matt’s heart and close the divide between two seemingly different lives.   An incredible story of love, healing, and acceptance.

I loved it.  Loved it.

The verse just blew me away.  As I’m sitting here now wondering what passage I should quote, I want to choose every page I look at.

Mom, Celia, Chris, and me,
we used to be good friends . . .
He leaves his sentence
hanging in the air.

Sometimes the words people don’t say
as are powerful as the ones they do.

Until the war came,
I say, finishing his thought.

He nods.

Until the war came
and ruined everything.

Because of you Matt-the-rat,
there’s no place for me.

Because of you, my wife left.

Because of you, my brother died.

Because of you, I have stumps instead of legs.

My head starts to spin.

The kitchen suddenly feels
as small as the storage room
behind the janitor’s closet.

I’d better go finish my homework, Dad,
I say.
Instead,
I run downstairs
to the basement bathroom
and throw up.

And another:

For two years,
I learned about Vietnam,
but it wasn’t any
Vietnam I remembered.
The teacher
was a tiny woman
with small eyes
who always stayed
in one spot
when she talked,
but those words rolled
up and down,
up and down
the classroom walls
like a glass marble.

She told happy stories
of people and places
I did not know.

Colorful costumes
and carnival dragons
live in another Vietnam,
a Vietnam
that I do not remember.

I close my eyes.
I listen.

I try to remember
the colors,

but I cannot.

I try to form
dragons from
dust,

but I cannot.

I try again.
But I cannot.

My Vietnam
is drenched
in smoke and fog.

It has no parks
or playgrounds,
no classrooms
or teachers.

It is not
on any map
or in any book.

My Vietnam is
only
a pocketful
of broken pieces
I carry inside me.

Prose like this always brings such raw emotion to the surface.  Achingly beautiful.

Links of interest: More book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction, free verse novel.  Approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Scholastic.  April 1, 2009.
Hardcover, 224 pages. ISBN 0545080924
Source copy: Library
All the Broken Pieces is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Everything in America is strange, cold, bright, and moves so fast.  Making the adjustment isn’t easy and sometimes he still sleeps on the floor instead of his bed because he has bad dreams about war, running, and hiding.  Sangoel starts school and joins the soccer team.  The problem is, nobody can pronounce his name.  Everybody tries but no matter how many times he tells them, nobody can say it.  He tells his mother, “In America I have lost my name.”  She suggests that perhaps he needs a new America name.  But he remembers the words of the wise old man back in Sudan “You will always be Sangoel.”

Sangoel comes up with a creative idea to teach others how to say his name and at the same time begin to adjust in his new home with new friends.

My Name is Sangoel is an excellent book to help teach children about the millions of children in the world who are refugees. There is an author’s note at the end which explains who refugees are, why they must flee their home countries, how they lived in camps, and how they must make a new home in foreign countries.  I’d recommend this one for classrooms, homes, and to teach compassion and diversity.  I like seeing books like this.

Links of interest:  Karen Lynn Williams website, Catherine Stocks website,  more book blogger reviews.  My Name is Sangoel is a Cybils fiction picture book nominee for which I’m a panelist.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. June 2009
Hardcover/Paperback # of pages. ISBN 0802853072
My Name is Sangoel is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Emmanuel Jal is truly an amazing person and one that makes me believe in the resilience of the human spirit.   A former child-solder at the young age of seven in the Sudanese civil war, he is now a hip-hop star who is using his music to share his message and to find peace for his people in Africa.

About Emmanuel Jal’s story (from the War Child movie website):

In the early 1980s at the age of seven, Jal was swept into Sudan’s civil war, becoming one of 10,000 child soldiers conscripted on both sides of the two decade long conflict. After being forced to do many unimaginably horrible things, he escaped the soldier’s camp and trekked for four months through Africa. He was eventually found and adopted by the now legendary British aid worker Emma McCune who had married Sudanese guerrilla commander Riek Machar and convinced him to not employ child soldiers. Shortly after she adopted Jal, McCune died in a suspicious car crash, leaving Emmanuel “orphaned” once again. Jal rose from ruthless child soldier to refugee to rap star. He found his own redemption and life mission through a message of peace that represents one of the 21st centuries’ most inspiring and hopeful journeys, and a metaphor for the broader African predicament.

What I find so surreal about Emmanuel Jal’s story is that he is my age (or nearly close to it as he doesn’t know exactly when he was born).  What was I doing in the comfort of my American home while he had to make decisions about whether or not to eat his dead friend in order to stay alive, or that he was sleeping with an Ak-47 and not only being trained at the age of eight as a soldier but also sent to the front lines to kill?

I was so mad at his father for giving him up.  For abandoning him when he was just a small child No child should have to raise himself at the age of seven or eight.  I was so mad that people could do such awful things to each other.  But I was so inspired with those who reached out to help.  I adored and loved Emma McCune.  She is a hero and sometimes I secretly wish that I could make a similar impact on somebody’s life.   I am so inspired by Emmanuel Jal himself.  For overcoming his war-torn childhood, not only surviving but thriving and using his life to  make a difference for others.

After I finished the book, I rushed out and watched the documentary about his life.  When he lived in the refugee camps, he was filmed by National Geographic.  He loved to talk when he was little so he became a natural spokesman for the children.  It was surreal to watch him as a little boy and put a face to the little boy that I read about.

Another trailer (does contain graphic images):

And then after I watched the documentary, I rushed out and got his CD which I have listened to no less than a dozen times.  His lyrics are so compelling and he’s really talented.  I love that he is using his music to make a difference.

I love this tribute song for Emma McCune, the woman who smuggled him out of the country, took him in, and put him in school:

I wanted to share this song as well, because he was told that if he wanted to be successful he should become more concerned with material things.  His response was that while his people suffered in Africa, those things are meaningless. Just goes to show what his character his like.

Emmanuel Jal tells his story in his own words.  Please stop a moment and take the time to watch:

One  year ago, Emmanuel Jal pledged to fast two meals a day until he raised enough funds to build a school for his people in Africa.  One year later and countless meals missed, he has not given up.  You can find out how’s he doing via the links below and help the cause.

I was so inspired from this book and learning about Emmanuel Jal’s journey that I chose this book for the Twenty-Minute Book Club on the That’s How I Blog, Blog Talk Radio Show hosted by Nicole at Linus’s Blanket, which I will be a guest on Tuesday, January 19th. (and if you’re into reading challenges – this book would fit nicely with the That’s How I Blog Challenge as well as the Social Justice Challenge).  I would love for you to read the book, watch the documentary, or listen to his album and join us on that show to discuss it.

Regardless, this is one of those books that when you read it, you have to tell everybody about it.  So this is me, telling you about it.  Read it.

Links of interest:  Emmanuel Jal website, Twitter, Facebook and on YouTube.  War Child documentary movie website.  Gua Africa, Emmanuel’s non-profit charity which he founded, which is currently raises funds for the Emma Academy, in honor of the woman who saved his life.
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press. February 3, 2009.
Hardcover, 272 pages. ISBN 0312383223
War Child is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Written by three Lost Boys who are also cousins – I could not put this memoir down.  When Judy Bernstein met all three, now in their twenties, after their relocation from the refugee camps in Kenya to San Diego, they asked for simple things including pads of paper to write their story.  What she read was not only heartbreaking but inspiring.  Their words are simple but their experiences are anything but.

Book description from official website:

Benjamin, Alepho, and Benson were raised among the Dinka tribe of Sudan. Their world was an insulated, close-knit community of grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. The lions and pythons that prowled beyond the village fences were the greatest threat they knew.

All that changed the night the government-armed Murahiliin began attacking their villages. Amid the chaos, screams, conflagration, and gunfire, five-year-old Benson and seven-year-old Benjamin fled into the dark night. Two years later, Alepho, age seven, was forced to do the same. Across the Southern Sudan, over the next five years, thousands of other boys did likewise, joining this stream of child refugees that became known as the Lost Boys. Their journey would take them over one thousand miles across a war-ravaged country, through landmine-sown paths, crocodile-infested waters, and grotesque extremes of hunger, thirst, and disease. The refugee camps they eventually filtered through offered little respite from the brutality they were fleeing.

In They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, Alepho, Benson, and Benjamin, by turn, recount their experiences along this unthinkable journey. They vividly recall the family, friends, and tribal world they left far behind them and their desperate efforts to keep track of one another. This is a captivating memoir of Sudan and a powerful portrait of war as seen through the eyes of children. And it is, in the end, an inspiring and unforgettable tribute to the tenacity of even the youngest human spirits.

I could not put this book down.  I really liked the alternating perspectives of the three cousins while continuing the linear timeline.  The experiences that they went through often make me question why such horrible things happen to little children.  And yet, they grow to be wonderful men who are full of life.

Call me a glutton for punishment, but as soon as I finished this one, I immediately began reading War Child by Emmanual Jal, the memoir of another Lost Boy conscripted to fight in the army.  The Lost Boys have so many stories to share, and I for one will listen.  This is a book that you will not regret reading and one that you soon won’t forget.

Links of interest: They Poured Fire From the Sky website (with lots of great resources), Judy Bernstein website.  Maw Books reviews of What is the What by Dave Eggers, picture book Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan by Mary Williams both about The Lost Boys of Sudan.
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: PublicAffairs. June 12, 2006.
Paperback, 336 pages. ISBN 1586483889
They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

If you are not aware of who the Lost Boys are,  let  me set it up for you as I have three more book reviews to quickly follow this one on the same subject.  During the mid-1980’s Sudan had a period of renewed fighting in its long-running civil war.  More than two million people have died.  Many of the children, particularly boys, were left orphaned and approximately thirty thousand Sudanese children, many under ten-years-old, were forced to march across Sudan to Ethiopia then Kenya in search of refuge.  They faced death through war, hyenas, lions, crocodiles, lack of water and starvation.

Their stories are heartbreaking and a testament to the will to survive.  Those boys have now become young men and many have sought refuge in foreign countries including the United States.  Two fantastic documentaries that I would recommend about the refugee experience is God Grew Tired of Us and Lost Boys of Sudan, both excellent insights into the hell that these boys went through and their readjustment to living in the United States.

I loved Mary’s words in her author’s note and wanted to preface my thoughts about the book with her thoughts:

Before meeting any of the Lost Boys, I assumed they would be hardened and embittered by their experiences: the loss of their parents, near starvation, and exposure to violence, persecution, and deprivation.  Imagine my surprise when the first group of ten young men walked into my office with huge smiles on their faces and excellent manners.  They spoke English well and were quick to laugh.  It was obvious they felt blessed to be given the opportunity to come to the United States.

When I asked one young man how they had endured such an arduous journey, he simply smiled and said, “It was the grace of God.”  The Lost Boys’ unrelenting faith in God, their loyalty to one another, and their desire to acquire an education to better themselves and their country is a powerful testament to the strength of the human spirit.

This book is based on the true story of the Lost Boys as told to me by the young men who lived it.

Brothers in Hope tells the story of eight-year-old Garang as he is orphaned by war, joins with other lost boys, walks to Ethiopia,lives in a refugee camp and then forced back to Sudan and then to Kenya.  Along the way, he takes care of Chuti, a boy younger than him and leads a group of  35 boys.  Garang lives in the refugee camps until he becomes a young man of twenty-one, and he is invited to the United States.  Although apprehensive about such a huge move, Garang remembers the words of his father “Your heart and mind are strong.  There is nothing you cannot do.”  Garang looks to the future and knows that although the road will be rough, he is no longer afraid.

A wonderful book with amazing illustrations by R. Gregory Christie in the African tradition.  I would highly recommend this picture book to introduce young readers to the stories of The Lost Boys.

In addition to the two documentaries mentioned earlier, I’d also recommend What is the What by Dave Eggers (which I hear is being made into a movie), War Child by Emmanuel Jal,  They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan by Alphonsion Deng, Benson Deng,  Benjamin Ajak with  Judy A. Bernstein for adult readers and another picture book My Name is Sangoel by Karen Lynn  Williams and Khadra Mohammed; all of which I can personally recommend and hope to review this week as well.

Links of interest:  To learn more about the Lost Boys,visit the publishers classroom guide, and book talk with author Mary Williams.
Genre:  Picture book, ages 9-12.
Publisher:  Lee and Low Books.  May 30, 2005.
Hardcover, 40 pages.  ISBN 1584302321
Brothers in Hope is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

And to tell you the truth that’s all of the jacket copy I read.  Because I tend to only read the first sentence of jacket covers in fear of knowing too much about the book.  But that was just enough to make me anxious to dive into the book right away.  A book set during World War II.  Score!  A book set in India during World War II?  Double score! I’ve never read a book set in India during the war that I can recall.

Let me go ahead and share the rest of the summary from the dust jacket with you.  Simply because I’ve written three reviews in a row tonight and well, despite my own avoidance of them, this particular summary does a fine job.

When tragedy strikes, Vidya and her brother, Kitta, are forced to move into a traditional household with their grandfather and their extended family, where men live separately upstairs and the women who live below are meant to be married, not educated.

Breaking the rules, Vidya finds refuge in her grandfather’s second-floor library.  There she meets Raman, a young man also living in the house.  Surprisingly, he treats her like and equal and encourages her intellectual curiosity.  But soon it’s clear Raman wants more than just friendship, and when Kitta makes a shocking choice the family cannon condone, Vidya’s life becomes a whirlwind of personal and political complications.  Will she be strong enough to survive the storm?

What a wonderful book.   I loved Vidya sneaking upstairs and reading Oliver Twist, Hans Brinker, Ivanhoe, Pride and Prejudice, The Mayor of Castorbridge and more.  I loved how Vidya defied all conventions that was expected of her.  She desperately wanted to go to college, she did not want to get married young, and she wanted to be treated as an equal with her male counterparts.  I hated that women in her society were meant only to serve the men.  Vidya wanted so much and stood up for her rights.  I love a girl who can stand up for herself.   I desperately wanted to see her hopes and dreams come true.

A great historical fiction novel set in India.  It was wonderful.

Links of interest:  Padma Venkatraman website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile.  May 1, 2008.
Hardcover, 256 pages. ISBN 0399247467
Climbing the Stairs is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Loved it.

Read on . . .

One of my favorite types of books to read are books that take place around World War II and the Holocaust.  There will never be a drought of stories to tell from this horrific part of history.  But I was shocked when I picked up Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf.  I had never read a book told from this particular perspective during the war.  Completely and utterly fascinating to me.  A true example of how a piece of historical fiction can open my eyes into a world that I knew nothing about.  I could not put this book down.  I carried it with me everywhere the day I read it.

Just a few short weeks after Milada’s eleventh birthday, Nazi’s storm every home in her town in Czechoslovakia and take everybody away.  Milada, her mother and grandmother are immediately separated from her father and brother and taken to a gymnasium where she undergoes a physical and doctors measure her features.  Milada and another classmate are torn again from their families, placed on a bus and sent to Poland.  When they arrive in a new girls school, Milada realizes that each girl there shares two traits in common:  blue eyes and blonde hair.  In addition, each has exactly the right size head or nose.

It is at this school that their indoctrination to Germanization begins.  She is renamed Eva and each girl is trained to forget everything about their past.  They have no past.  They only have futures of being the perfect German citizen and be raised up to be perfect German wifes.  Eva struggles with her new identity, the new language and to remain true to her upbringing and background.  She holds on to a pin from her grandmother to always remember who she is.

And then the impossible happens.  Eva can no longer remember her true name.  What did people use to call her?  Can she recall it?  She can’t remember her name.  The Germans have taken everything from her.

After the intense period of training, each girl is adopted into a German family.  With a new name, a new language, a new sister and a new mother and father, will Eva be able to remember who she really is?  Or will she be lost forever?

Stunning.  This story had me jaw dropping all over the place.

There is a seven page author’s note at the end of the book which really brought the whole thing home for me.  Inspired by the true events that took place in the town of Lidice where Hitler had a personal vendetta for a particular officer there, Hitler ordered the entire town to be emptied and razed.  The men and boys were shot immediately while the women and children spent three days in the Kladno school gym.  Their heads were measured and their eye and hair colors examined to see if they matched Aryan standards.  Children who were selected for “Germanization” and the very youngest were sent directly to orphanages where they were adopted by German citizens.  Many children in the retraining program were literally kidnapped off of the streets.  At the end of the war, these Lidice children were tracked down and returned back home to their families.   And for the smallest children who remembered nothing of their former lives were traumatized when removed from their adoptive German parents.

Someone Named Eva introduced me to this horrific aspect of World War II.  Eva’s story was beautifully told and I felt so drawn to her.  Even to the very last page, I had no idea where Eva’s story would go.  I’d love for more people to pick this book up.  It deserves a wide audience.  In fact, the more I think back on this book, the more I love it.  An excellent book and I’d highly recommend it for readers of all ages.

(And by the way, the hardcover has a terrible cover.  It’s the copy that I read.  Thank goodness they improved the paperback.)

Links of interest:  Joan M. Wolf website.  More book blogger reviews.
Genre:  Middle grade historical fiction.  Approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Clarion Books.  July 16, 2007.
Hardcover, 208 pages. ISBN 0618535799
Someone Named Eva is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.