World War II

Baer, Edith - A Frost in the Night   (208 pages) - Germany 1932, Hitler is rising to power. This critical place and time in modern history is poignantly re-created through the observations of a young Jewish girl named Eva, who is caught up in the sense of dread shared by the adults around her.

Bennett, Cherie - Anne Frank and Me  (291 pages) - After suffering a concussion while on a class trip to a Holocaust exhibit, Nicole finds herself living the life of a Jewish teenager in Paris during the Nazi occupation.

Chotjewitz, David – Daniel Half Human and the Good Nazi  (298 pages) In 1933, best friends Daniel and Armin admire Hitler, but as anti-Semitism buoys Hitler to power, Daniel learns he is half Jewish, threatening the friendship even as life in their beloved Hamburg, Germany, is becoming nightmarish. Also details Daniel and Armin's reunion in 1945 in interspersed chapters.  (N)

Friedman, D. Dina – Escaping into the Night  (199 pages) Thirteen-year-old Halina Rudowski narrowly escapes the Polish ghetto and flees to the forest, where she is taken in by an encampment of Jews trying to survive World War II.  (N)

Issacs, Anne - Torn Thread   (188 pages) - Twelve-year-old Eva has been hiding in an attic with her Papa as Nazi's ravage what was once her safe, comfortable town. To save Eva from certain death in Auschwitz, Papa tells her he is sending her, voluntarily, to the labor camp where her sister, Rachel, is imprisoned. There the girls must live out the war years as prisoners, making clothing and blankets for the Nazis.

Matas, Carol – After the War   (133 pages) After being released from Buchenwald at the end of World War II, fifteen-year-old Ruth joins the underground organization Berihah, and risks her life to lead a group of children across Europe to Palestine.  (N)

Matas, Carol - Daniel's Story  (136 pages) - Daniel, a composite character fashioned to reflect the experiences of millions of children during the Holocaust, describes his family's lives in pre-Nazi Frankfurt, their deportation to a ghetto, and their experiences in concentration camps.

Newbery, Linda – Sisterland (369 pages) When Hilly's grandmother becomes ill with Alzheimer's disease, her family is turned upside down by revelations from her life during World War II.  (N)

Nolan, Han – If I Should Die Before I Wake  (225 pages) As Hilary, a Neo-Nazi initiate, lies in a coma, she is transported back to Poland at the onset of World War II into the life of a Jewish teenager.  (N)

Roy, Jennifer – Yellow Star  (227 pages) From 1939, when Syvia is four and a half years old, to 1945 when she has just turned ten, a Jewish girl and her family struggle to survive in Poland's Lodz ghetto during the Nazi occupation.  (N)

Sachs, Marilyn – Lost in America (150 pages) Follows the experiences of Nicole, a teenaged French Jew, from 1943 to 1948, as she loses her parents and sister to the concentration camps and then leaves her native France to make a new life for herself in New York City.  (N)

Spinelli, Jerry – Milkweed   (208 pages) Captures the hardships and cruelty of life in the ghettos of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of World War II, through the eyes of a Jewish orphan who must use all his wits and courage to survive unimaginable events and circumstances. (N)

Key:

N=Synopsis from NoveList
K=Synopsis by librarian
A=Synopsis from Amazon.com