A Star Shines Through by Anna Desnitskaya (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 40 pages, grades 1-5). “We used to live in a big city,” the narrator begins. Her family kept a star-shaped lamp in their apartment window, which would welcome her home at night. But then war came, and she and her mother (the father disappears without explanation) flee to another country. Everything is new: the language, the food, the apartment, even her mom and her. One night, Mom brings home a package with cardboard, scissors, and glue, and together they make a cardboard star with a light inside. Putting the lamp in the window marks a turning point, and soon their new country is feeling more like home. Includes an author’s note telling how a one-week family vacation in Cyprus turned into a refugee situation when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The author packs a big punch with just a few words on the beautifully illustrated pages of this book. It felt a little optimistic that making a lamp would turn things around so quickly, especially with the loss of the father, whether he was killed or had to stay behind. But the story offers hope to kids forced to move due to wars and other difficulties that make them and their families refugees.
The Night War by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Dial Books, 288 pages, grades 4-7). When there’s a roundup of Jews living in Paris, Miriam (Miri) is captured and separated from her parents. A neighbor helps her escape, on the condition the Miri take the woman’s two-year-old daughter Nora with her. Helped by a nun, Miri and Nora are sent to a town near Tours, where an old castle stands on the border of occupied France and Vichy France. En route to the town, Miriam falls asleep and awakens to find that Nora has been taken away and sent to live with another family. Miri is placed in a convent school, joining the nuns and a few students who have stayed for the summer, and is renamed Marie to hide her Jewish identity. While there, she gets involved in a secret operation to help escaping Jews cross the border, aided by a mysterious old woman who turns out to be the ghost of former castle owner Catherine de Medici. Miriam/Marie’s last mission is to save herself and Nora, which she is able to do with the help of the friends she has made at the convent, in an exciting and daring escape. Includes a lengthy author’s note with additional historical information.
I’m on a mission to read some of the Newbery contenders, so I finally got around to this one, written by the author of some of my favorite World War II historical fiction books, The War That Saved My Life and its sequel. While it’s currently at number 3 on the Goodreads Newbery list, I confess I did not much care for it. I’m sure the circumstances of 1942 France made kids grow up fast, but Miri and her friend Beatrice were way too wise beyond their years. Their other friend Jacqueline seemed to exist mostly to show how oblivious many French people were to the suffering of their Jewish neighbors. I had kind of mixed feelings about the ghost plot twist; it was cool in some ways and made for an interesting subplot, but also felt somewhat jarring. Finally, the epilogue wrapped things up WAY too neatly for a book about the Holocaust. This book has gotten glowing reviews, though, and the history is super interesting, so take a look for yourself!