Why is every historical fiction about World War II? You know, there were other wars.

At first, I thought this was going to be a snooze. The writing is straightforward. It could be used as classroom reading (and probably is and was probably written for that exact purpose). It had the earmarks of another schmaltzy obvious message WWII book like Number the Stars or The Book Thief. Nazis are bad, don’t kill Jews, war sucks, etc. etc. But it’s all delivered in such a watered-down Disneyesque way. There’s always a happy ending, there’s never any on-screen violence, no one dies, everyone learns a lesson, etc.

But in the second half, this book really picks up. Some genuine stakes come up, actual character deaths, and some violence. It doesn’t pull its punches like other YA WWII novels have done. In fact, the back half was so good, it upgraded my rating from three to four stars.

Some might say it gets a little bit Hollywood, but that’s what I need right now. WWII was generations ago, it might as well be talking about WWII. The fact that these are kids makes it higher rated for me, in that the author actually chose to take some chances and be entertaining while at the same time sending a message.