Fiction

Waiting for Anya by Michael Morpurgo

A  A gripping World War II adventure from War Horse author and former Children’s Laureate, Michael Morpurgo..

Jo did not stop until he’d shut the door behind him and een then his heart could not stop pounding in his ears

Jo finds out that Jewish children are being smuggled away from the Nazis over the mountains near his village. All goes to plan until German soldiers start patrolling the mountains, and Jo realises the children are trapped. His slightest mistake could have devastating consequences.

The book will provide a wider context for children who have studied The Holocaust and The Diary of Anne Frank.

I believe in Unicorns by Michael Morpurgo

Set against the backdrop of war-torn Europe, I Believe in Unicorns explores the power of stories to transform our lives. Eight-year-old Tomas hates school, hates books and hates stories. Forced to visit the library, he stops to listen to magical tales that the Unicorn Lady spins – tales that draw him in, making themselves part of him and changing the course of his life forever, making him believe in unicorns. By the end of this story, you will believe in unicorns too. 

An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpurgo

 A thrilling and moving novel about an extraordinary animal caught up in a very human war.

Dresden, 1945, Elizabeth and Karli’s mother works at the zoo, where her favourite animal is a young elephant named Marlene. Then the zoo director tells her that the dangerous animals, including the elephants – must be shot before the town is bombed. Unable to give Marlene up, their mother moves her into the back garden to save her…. And then the bombs start to fall.

Their home destroyed, the whole family must flee the bombed out city and through the perilous snow-covered landscape, all the while avoiding the Russian troops who are drawing ever closer. It would be hard enough to do, without an elephant in tow… 

The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo

 When Lesley is sent to Venice to interview world-renowned violinist Paulo Levi on his fiftieth birthday, she cannot believe her luck. She is told that she can ask him anything at all –€“ except the Mozart question. But it is Paulo himself who decides that it is time for the truth to be told. And so follows the story of his parents as Jewish prisoners of war, forced to play Mozart violin concerti for the enemy; how they watched fellow Jews being led off to their deaths and knew that they were playing for their lives. 

Once by Maurice Gleitzman

Once by Morris Gleitzman is the story of a young Jewish boy who is determined to escape the orphanage he lives in to save his Jewish parents from the Nazis in the occupied Poland of the Second World War.
 
Everybody deserves to have something good in their life. At least Once. 

Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.
 
Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.
 
Once I made a Nazi with a toothache laugh.
 
My name is Felix. This is my story.

Then by Maurice Gleitzman

Then - Morris Gleitzman's heartbreaking children's novel set during the Nazi occupation of Poland during the Second World War - Jewish orphan Felix and his best friend Zelda have been captured and are on the way to a concentration camp, unless they manage to escape . . .

 
A little hope goes a long way.
 
I had a plan for me and Zelda. Pretend to be someone else. Find new parents, be safe forever.
 
Then the Nazis came.
 
My name is Felix. This is my story.
 
Then is the second in a series of children's novels about Felix, a Jewish orphan caught in the middle of the Holocaust 

Now by Maurice Glietzman

Now is the third shocking, funny and heartbreaking book in Morris Gleitzman's Second World War series.
 
Sometimes facing the past is the bravest act of all...
 
ONCE
I didn't know about my grandfather Felix's scary childhood.
 
THEN
I found out what the Nazis did to his best friend Zelda.
 
NOW
I understand why Felix does the things he does.
 
At least he's got me. My name is Zelda too. This is our story. 

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

This semi-autobiographical classic, written by the beloved Judith Kerr, tells the story of a Jewish family escaping Germany in the days before the Second World War.

Suppose your country began to change. Suppose that without your noticing, it became dangerous for some people to live in it any longer, and you found, to your surprise, that your own father was one of those people. This is what happened to Anna in 1933.

Anna is too busy with her schoolwork and tobogganing to listen to the talk of Hitler. But one day she and her brother Max are rushed out of Germany in alarming secrecy, away from everything they know. Their father is wanted by the Nazis. This is the start of a huge adventure, sometimes frightening, very often funny and always exciting. 

Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr

Partly autobiographical, this is the second title in Judith Kerr's internationally acclaimed trilogy of books following the life of Anna through war-torn Germany, to London during the Blitz and her return to Berlin to discover the past...

It is hard enough being a teenager in London during the Blitz, finding yourself in love and wondering every night whether you will survive the bombs. But it is even harder for Anna, who is still officially classified as an “enemy alien”. Those bombs are coming from Germany – the country that was once her own.  If Hitler invades, can she and her beloved refugee family possibly survive? 

A Small Person Far Away by Judith Kerr

Partly autobiographical, this is the third title in Judith Kerr's internationally acclaimed trilogy of books following the life of Anna through war-torn Germany, to London during the Blitz and her return to Berlin to discover the past...

Anna, who left Berlin as a refugee to escape the Nazis, is forced to return there to visit her sick mother, and in the process is faced with the past she has shut out for so long. 

The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

Nine year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution or the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country.
All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.
Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process. 

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France.

Nemirovsky's death in Auschwitz in 1942 prevented her from seeing the day, sixty-five years later, that the existing two sections of her planned novel sequence, Suite Francaise, would be rediscovered and hailed as a masterpiece.

Set during the year that France fell to the Nazis, Suite Francaise falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation.

Suite Francaise is a novel that teems with wonderful characters struggling with the new regime. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places.

Auslander by Paul Dowswell

When Peter's parents are killed, he is sent to an orphanage in Warsaw. Then German soldiers take him away to be measured and assessed. They decide that Peter is racially valuable. He is Volksdeutscher: of German blood. With his blond hair, blue eyes, and acceptably proportioned head, he looks just like the boy on the Hitler-Jugend poster. Someone important will want to adopt Peter. They do. Professor Kaltenbach is very pleased to welcome such a fine Aryan specimen to his household. People will be envious. But Peter is not quite the specimen they think. He is forming his own ideas about what he is seeing, what he is told. Peter doesn't want to be a Nazi, and so he is going to take a very dangerous risk. The most dangerous risk he could possibly choose to take in Berlin in 1942.

Rose Blanche by Ian McEwan

Rose Blanche was the name of a group of young German citizens who, at their peril, protested against the war. Like them, Rose observes all the changes going on around her which others choose to ignore. She watches as the streets of her small German town fill with soldiers. One day she sees a little boy escaping from the back of a truck, only to be captured by the mayor and shoved back into it. Rose follows the truck to a desolate place out of town, where she discovers many other children, staring hungrily from behind an electric barbed wire fence. She starts bringing the children food, instinctively sensing the need for secrecy, even with her mother. Until the tide of the war turns and soldiers in different uniforms stream in from the East, and Rose and the imprisoned children disappear for ever . . . 

I Wanted To Fly Like A Butterfly by Naomi Morgenstern

This is the story of a little Jewish girl named Hannah and tells of her life through the very turbulent times leading up to War World II and throughout the war. It is a very moving story and well told.

Hitler’s Canary by Sandi Toksvig

A must-read account of immense courage during the Second World War, for children. Based on real-life events experienced by Sandi Toksvig's family during the Nazi occupation of Denmark.

1940. Copenagen, Denmark. The German troops have invaded.
Ten-year-old Bamse Skovlund and his best friend Anton have been ordered to stay out of trouble.
It soon becomes clear that trouble isn't just going to pass any of them by.
Jewish Danes are subject to appalling treatment by the German occupiers, and every day are at risk of being taken away to concentration camps in mainland Europe.
The Skovlund family are determined to fight against Nazi occupation. And if this means participating in one of history's most dramatic rescue missions, then it's time to take a stand.

Beyond The Bedroom Wall by Larry Wolwode

From sentimental scenes of a father telling his children stories and the poignancy of a child fighting a nearly fatal illness to the agonizing grief of losing one's spouse, Beyond the Bedroom Wall is an engaging homage to the seemingly evaporating family unit at the end of the twentieth century.

Seeking Refuge: A Graphic Novel by Irene N Watts

Eleven-year-old Marianne is fortunate. She one of the first two hundred Jewish children on the heroic rescue operation known as the Kindertransport, which arrived in London, England in December, 1938. 
Life in the new country seems strange, her few words of English and her attempts to become an ordinary English girl are not enough to please her foster mother, who wanted a girl as a domestic servant. Marianne deeply misses her family, whom she had to leave behind. 
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Marianne finds herself being evacuated to Wales. She is shuffled from one unsuitable home to another - but there is a surprise in store and Marianne's courage and resilience is finally rewarded. 
The Kindertransport ultimately saved of almost 10,000 children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in the nine months preceding World War II was a unique and triumphant human effort. Marianne's story is based on the kind of events that were actually experienced by the children. Author Irene N. Watts was one of them, arriving on the second Kindertransport in December 1938 at the age of seven.

T4 – A Novel In Verse by Ann Clare LeZotte

It is 1939. Paula Becker, thirteen years old and deaf, lives with her family in a rural German town. As rumours swirl of disabled children quietly disappearing, a priest comes to her family’s door with an offer to shield Paula from an uncertain fate. When the sanctuary he offers is fleeting, Paula needs to call upon all her strength to stay one step ahead of the Nazis.

Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas

Daniel barely remembers leading a normal life before the Nazis came to power in 1933. He can still picture once being happy and safe, but memories of those days are fading as he and his family face the dangers threatening Jews in Hitler's Germany in the late 1930's.

The Devil’s Arithmmetic by Jane Yolen

The Devil's Arithmetic is a historical fiction time slip novel written by American author Jane Yolen and published in 1988. The book is about Hannah Stern, a 16 year old Jewish girl who lives in New Rochelle, New York and who gives no importance to her Jewish family, is sent back in time to experience the Holocaust. She finds herself in a small Polish village where the Nazis are on the verge of initiating a massive genocide.

Jacob’s Rescue by Malka Drucker and Michael Halperin 

Based on a true story, and from the co-author of Rescuers, the courageous and vividly told story of one boy and the courageous family who risks everything to save him. 
Once Jacob Gutgeld lived with his family in a beautiful house in Warsaw, Poland. He went to school and played hide-and-seek in the woods with his friends. But everything changed the day the Nazi soldiers invaded in 1939. Suddenly it wasn't safe to be Jewish anymore. 

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry

  A ten-year-old Danish girls bravery is tested when her best friend is threatened by Nazis in 1943.

The story centers on 10-year-old Annemarie Johansen, who lives with her mother, father, and sister Kirsti in Copenhagen in 1943. Annemarie becomes a part of the events related to the rescue of the Danish Jews, when thousands of Jews were to reach neutral ground in Sweden to avoid being relocated to concentration camps. She risks her life to help her best friend, Ellen Rosen, by pretending that Ellen is Annemarie's late older sister, Lise, who was killed earlier in the war by the Nazi army because of her work with the Danish Resistance. However, her former fiancé, Peter, who is partly based on the Danish resistance member Kim Malthe-Bruun, continues to help them. 

The Red Ribbon by Lucy Adlington

Shining a light on a little-known aspect of the Holocaust, Lucy Adlington weaves an unforgettable story of strength, survival, and a friendship that can endure anything.

Three weeks after being detained on her way home from school, fourteen-year-old Ella finds herself in the Upper Tailoring Studio, a sewing workshop inside a Nazi concentration camp. There, two dozen skeletal women toil over stolen sewing machines. They are the seamstresses of Birchwood, stitching couture dresses for a perilous client list: wives of the camp's Nazi overseers and the female SS officers who make prisoners' lives miserable. It is a workshop where stylish designs or careless stitches can mean life or death. And it is where Ella meets Rose. As thoughtful and resilient as the dressmakers themselves, Rose and Ella's story is one of courage, desperation, and hope -- hope as delicate and as strong as silk, as vibrant as a red ribbon in a sea of gray.