April 1, 2018
It is 1943, but the war feels far away from Trudy. She is on the cusp of becoming a teenager, and her thoughts revolve around homework, friends, and the possibility of getting a boyfriend?until three men in black suits show up at her doorstep. In an instant, the war is made chillingly present when her academic father is interned at a camp as an enemy alien. This novel offers a window into a lesser-known aspect of internment in WWII: U.S. citizens of German heritage being treated as enemies. Soon Trudy and her mother?the latter, like Trudy's father, was born in Germany?are also sent to a camp in the desert. Their two years behind the barbed wire will mark each of them, and, even after their release, they will carry the experience into their new lives. Eventually the family settles in Mississippi, where they witness the entrenched racial discrimination that so strongly echoes their own recent trials. When a regular girl confronts extraordinary challenges, this novel forcefully asks what it takes to stand up for what is right.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
April 1, 2018
Gr 6-10-Set during World War II, Trudy's story begins in Virginia. However, as her father's connections with his German family come into question, the family is forced to move to an internment camp in Texas. Here, Trudy learns about the ugliness of discrimination and lessons that will forever change how she views life. Beck covers a lot of ground in this historical novel. The author starts with the beginning of the U.S. involvement in World War II and ends with the first stirrings of the civil rights movement. The plot is fast, driving, and great for reluctant readers. However, for those who enjoy more character development and literary detail, this story may be a bit unsatisfying. VERDICT A secondary purchase for collections without a historical fiction fanbase. Great for school libraries as it offers a viewpoint of the effects of World War II at home.-Maryjean Bakaletz, Morris County Library, Whippany, NJ
Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 15, 2018
In this debut historical novel, a girl and her family face harsh conditions in a German-American internment camp in Texas during World War II.The daughter of a piano teacher and a math professor at the local college, Trudy Herman is a studious girl in sixth grade in Somerville, Virginia. She sorely misses her dead grandfather, a gentle man who taught her how to find the Pleiades in the night sky, but otherwise she leads a happy, normal life. That is, until three grim men show up at the Hermans' front door, search their home, and seize Trudy's father, a German immigrant, for reasons they won't say. Trudy's life falls apart. Her mother becomes a shrunken, fearful woman, and all of Trudy's friends and neighbors shun her except for her classmate Eddie Gutschmidt, whose father was also taken. Eventually, Trudy, her mother, and Eddie's family are forced to travel by train to Traybold, Texas, the site of a German-American internment camp. They carry on a reduced existence within the confines of a barbed-wire fence. Trudy finds comfort in books, Eddie's friendship, and an old, cheerful woman named Ruth Schuler, but she is shocked by the guards' cruelty toward "krauts" like her. Finally, Trudy's father arrives and the family is reunited. Once the war is over, the Hermans end up in Mississippi, where they must rebuild their lives. Beck tends to tell more than show Trudy's emotions ("Three wooden chairs were placed in a line....Two were occupied by Mom and me, and the third chair, where Dad should have been sitting, sat empty. My mood matched the room's gray, and I felt lonely"). Still, the world through Trudy's eyes is astonishingly vivid, from the fetid scent of a house her family stays in to the sight of a sandhill crane on a riverbank. And the sensitive and scrupulous protagonist is cleareyed on how people can adapt to anything, even internment, but maintains that the experience warps everyone: "Our lives took on a normalcy, but that troubled me even more. How could being kept inside a barbed-wire fence like cattle feel normal?"Told with deep empathy, this tale illuminates a little-known but relevant aspect of U.S. history and deftly explores privilege and injustice in their many forms.
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