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We Had To Be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport by Deborah Hopkinson

With the same attention to detail and straightforward writing style readers have come to appreciate from her, Deborah Hopkinson looks at how the rescue operation of Jewish children from Nazi occupied Europe, known as the Kindertransport, was able to saved approximately 10,000 young people. In the first half of this fascinating history ,  Hopkinson details Hitler's rise to power and ties its impact into the lives of a number of Jewish families. Most people don't realize just how widespread anti-Semitic feelings were in 1930s Germany, but as Hitler became more popular, as his followers increased, many Jews who had believed themselves to be as German as their non-Jewish neighbors began to experience a definite change. For example, Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps for no reason, prohibitions were enacted so that Jews in civil service lost their jobs, Jews couldn't go to the movies or visit a park, Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend German s...

The Secret

Spotlight: The Bookery App

Hey guys! So I was contacted by the creator of a new app called  The Bookery   and I decided to share it on the blog because I think it could be a lot of help to all the book lovers out there looking for the best book deals. Instead of having to search through your overloaded inboxes for book deals, they’re bringing them straight to your phone – in one convenient place. They’ve also gathered cool content from authors and bloggers for your reading pleasure. Not to mention, they’re always running a contest with plenty of prizes: from books to gift cards to swag, and much more. Check them out on the Apple App Store or Google Play ! -Kristen ♥

Book Blitz: Paralucidity by Stephen H. Provost (Excerpt + Giveaway)

Title: Paralucidity Author: Stephen H. Provost Series: The Memortality Saga, #2 Publication Date: July 15, 2018 Synopsis: Somebody wanted Minerva Rus dead. They succeeded. But Minerva isn’t letting a little thing like death stop her. After the dangerous adventure that killed her in Memortality , Minerva Rus has reconciled herself to being dead. She and her also-dead boyfriend Raven share an amazing gift that allows them to bring the dead back to life―including each other. Now that Jules, their most dangerous enemy, has been banished from reality and trapped inside her own mind, Minerva and Raven plan on enjoying the eternity of their unnatural lives. But immortality isn’t safe. Minerva and Raven’s life-giving powers mysteriously fade, forcing them to take refuge in The Between, a shadowy realm of memories that lies between life and death. What's more, their old adversary Jules is on the loose, partnered with a resurrected Nazi scientist planning a monstrous experiment that will...

The Sound of Freedom by Kathy Kacer

It's 1936, and, for Anna Hirsch, a 12-year-old Jewish girl living in Krakow, Poland, life revolves around school, her best friend, playing her clarinet, and home. Anna's father, Avrum Hirsch, is a music teacher and a well-known clarinetist, playing in the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra, and Baba, her grandmother, has been living with and caring for the family since Anna's mother passed away. Now, however, anti-Semitism is on the rise in Poland, thanks to Hitler's influence, and Anna's happy, secure life is beginning to crumble. After learning that her best friend is leaving for Denmark with her family to escape the unpleasant and often dangerous treatment of Polish Jews, and after witnessing violence against a Jewish butcher, Mr. Kaplansky, Anna also no longer feels safe living in Poland. So when her father tells her that he had read that the famous musician Bronislaw Huberman was coming to Poland to begin forming an orchestra that would be situated in the British Ma...

The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery by Allison Rushby

It's December 1940 and London is being bombed night after night by the German Luftwaffe.  In Highgate Cemetery, however, the souls who are buried there are, for the most part, at peace, thanks to Flossie Birdwhistle, 12. Flossie had died of rheumatic fever, and now served as the turnkey or keeper of the key, of Highgate. It is her job to make sure everyone stays peacefully at rest there. As turnkey, Flossie must stay awake and can even leave the cemetery, sometimes visiting the Golden Galley atop St. Paul's Cathedral, a tranquil place overlooking London until the war began. But one December night, she runs into someone else up there - a man who was clearly dead and part of the spirit world, though not a turnkey, and dressed in the uniform of a Nazi officer and carrying a strange looking round glass object. When he sees Flossie, he quickly flees. Confused, Flossie decides to visit her friend Ada, the Turnkey of Tower Hamlets cemetery. No sooner does she tell Ada what she saw, th...

Book Tour: The Truth Between Us by Tammy L. Gray (Giveaway)

Title: The Truth Between Us Author: Tammy L. Gray Series: Bentwood, #2 Publication Date:  July 12, 2018 Synopsis: Nine years to win her. Three years to love her. And one decision that destroyed it all. April Duncan was raised with three clear truths: the family name is absolute, ambition and success rule over every emotion, and love always comes with strings attached. Image was everything in her carefully crafted world... until the mirror cracked. Sean Taylor was April's best friend, the one man who taught her it was okay to let her guard down and to rely on someone. She trusted him. She loved him. Which made his deception the darkest kind of cruelty. Now, nearly a year later, she’s ready to leave her failed engagement in the past and get back her life and her estranged family, even if it means dating a man solely for his connections. She’ll never again choose love over loyalty. Sean has spent his entire life breaking barriers, facing challenges, and never giving up. Until one imp...

Book Tour: Stolen Obsession by Marlene M. Bell (Giveaway)

Title: Stolen Obsession Author: Marlene M. Bell Series: Annalisse, #1 Publisher: Ewephoric Publishing Publication Date:  June 30, 2018 Synopsis: People die, but legends live on. New York antiquities appraiser Annalisse Drury recently lost her best friend to murder. The killer’s identity may be linked to her friend’s expensive missing bracelet—a 500-year-old artifact that carries an ancient curse, one that unleashes evil upon any who dare wear the jewelry created for the Persian royal family. Weeks later, Annalisse sees a matching necklace at a Manhattan gallery opening. She begs the owner to destroy the cursed piece, but her pleas fall on deaf ears—despite the unnatural death that occurs during the opening. With two victims linked to the jewelry, Annalisse is certain she must act. Desperate, Annalisse enlists the gallery owner’s son to help—even though she’s afraid he’ll break her heart. Wealthy and devastatingly handsome, with a string of bereft women in his wake, Greek playboy Al...

Blog Tour: Arrowheart by Rebecca Sky (Guest Post + Giveaway)

Title: Arrowheart Author: Rebecca Sky Series: The Love Curse, #1 Publisher: Hodder Publication Date: June 14, 2018 Synopsis: Kiss the boys and make them cry...  The gods are gone. The people have forgotten them. But sixteen-year-old Rachel Patel can't forget - the gods control her life, or more specifically, her love life. Being a Hedoness, one of a strong group of women descended from Greek God Eros, makes true love impossible for Rachel. She wields the power of that magical golden arrow, and with it, the promise to take the will of any boy she kisses. But the last thing Rachel wants is to force someone to love her . . . When seventeen-year-old Benjamin Blake's disappearance links back to the Hedonesses, Rachel's world collides with his, and her biggest fear becomes a terrifying reality. She's falling for him - a messy, magnetic, arrow-over-feet type of fall. Rachel distances herself, struggling to resist the growing attraction, but when he gives up his dream to ...

Where I Am

GREETINGS FROM SUNNY FLORIDA! It's time for the annual Baugh Cousins Reunion. It's a get together of siblings, 1st cousins, 1st cousins twice removed, nieces, nephews, and some brave souls who have married into this group. Every year, we pick a different venue, and this year we are in sunny,  warm  hot Boynton Beach, Florida (we base our venue decision based on school schedules): A bunch of Baughs being serious (except me, I'm taking the picture) Next year: Albany, NY so we can include my 94 year old uncle in the festivities. I'll be back next week with new reviews of good books. (This post was originally posted on Randomly Reading)

Jazz Owls: A Novel About the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle, art by Rudy Gutierrez

It's 1942 in Los Angeles, California. America hasn't been in World War II very long, but already the country is doing maximum war effort work. And that includes Mexican American sisters Marisela, 16, and Lorena, 14, who work long, exhausting days in a cannery, canning fruits and vegetables that will be sent to the armed forces overseas. But when night comes, the sisters are escorted to the local USO by their younger brother Ray, 12, to dance the night away with navy recruits on leave before they ship out to fight in the Pacific. Oldest brother Nicolás is off fighting somewhere in the where. Rau may only be 12, but he already identifies as a zoot suiter, wearing the large jacket and loose pants, he calls drapes, that are their signature style and giving dancers plenty of room for dancing the jitterbugging and lindy hop. One night, after dropping his sisters off at the USO, Ray heads to a private party at a place called the Williams Ranch. A fight breaks out there and some member...

Book Blitz: The Changeling's Fortune by M.C. Aquila and K.C. Lannon (Excerpt + Giveaway)

Title: The Changeling's Fortune Authors: M.C. Aquila and K.C. Lannon Series: Winter's Blight, #1 Publication Date: May 25, 2018 Synopsis: When optimistic seventeen-year-old orphan Deirdre travels to Neo-London, a city created after a near-apocalyptic attack by Unseelie faeries, she is caught in the tension between faeries and the Iron Guard, a militarized faction created to keep the peace. After a banshee tells her fortune, Deirdre develops destructive magical abilities but quickly discovers she cannot control them. These powers soon make her a target of Alan Callaghan, an extreme anti-faery general. His sons, Iain and James, cross paths with Deirdre. Iain is a rookie soldier in the Iron Guard trying to atone for past mistakes and keep his younger brother from harm. James, a fourteen-year-old aspiring scholar fascinated by faeries, becomes fast friends with Deirdre. They soon plot to escape the barriers and lies of the city to find answers about her magic and James’s disapp...

Blog Tour: Kiss of the Royal by Lindsey Duga (Teaser + Giveaway)

Title: Kiss of the Royal Author: Lindsey Duga Publisher: Entangled Teen Publication Date: July 3, 2018 Synopsis: In the war against the Forces of Darkness, the Royals are losing. Princess Ivy is determined to end this centuries-long conflict once and for all, so her new battle partner must succeed where the others failed. Prince Zach’s unparalleled skill with a sword, enhanced by Ivy’s magic Kiss, should make them an unstoppable pair—but try convincing Zach of that. Prince Zach has spent his life preparing for battle, but he would rather be branded a heretic than use his lips as nothing more than a way to transfer magic. A kiss is a symbol of love, and love is the most powerful weapon they have—but try convincing Ivy of that. With the fate of their world on the line, the battlefield has become a testing ground, and only one of them can be right. Falling for each other wasn’t part of the plan—but try convincing their hearts of that. About the Author: Lindsey Duga is a middle grade and...

Book Blitz: Game of Secrets by Kim Foster (Excerpt + Giveaway)

Title: Game of Secrets Author: Kim Foster Publisher: Sky Pony Press Publication Date: July 3, 2018 Synopsis: Felicity Cole sells flowers in the streets of Victorian London to feed herself and her young brother. But she has a close-guarded secret—her brother is a Tainted, born with special abilities that society fears and a shadowy organization called the Hunstsmen scours the country to eliminate. When Felicity becomes the target of one of these individuals, she discovers something horrible: she’s Tainted, too. Rescued by a mysterious gentleman on the eve of execution, she's whisked away to a school funded by Queen Victoria, established to train selected Tainted into assassins in service of the crown. Struggling to harness her incredible strength, speed, and agility, and despised by her classmates, all she wants is to use her new position to find a cure so she can be normal and reunited with her brother. But with the Golden Jubilee fast approaching and the discovery that there’s a...

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Ruby in the Ruins written and illustrated by Shirley Hughes

I mentioned in my review of Voices from the Second World War  that writer/artist Shirley Hughes was one of the people who contributed her wartime experiences to that excellent collection of oral histories, and that she had also written a book based on them (see Whistling in the Dark ). Ruby in the Ruins  is Hughes' latest picture book, one that takes place just at the end of WWII. Everyone in Ruby's London neighborhood is celebrating the end of the war with block parties, including Ruby and her Mum.  But, though the fighting may have ended, the memory of the Blitz is still fresh in their minds. There were all those nights when the air raid sirens went off, and people were supposed to go to their nearest shelter. And kids had been sent out of London for safety, but Ruby and her Mum stayed - just in case her dad, who is in the army, got leave and could come home to visit for a visit.  Those scary days and nights may be in the past, but all around her, Ruby sees houses ...

Blog Tour: Death by the River by Alexandrea Weis & Lucas Astor (Top Ten + Giveaway)

Title: Death by the River Authors: Alexandrea Weis & Lucas Astor Publisher: Vesuvian Books Publication Date: October 2, 2018 Synopsis: A High School “American Psycho”  Some truths are better kept secret.  Some secrets are better off dead.  Along the banks of the Bogue Falaya River, sits the abandoned St. Francis Seminary. Beneath a canopy of oaks, blocked from prying eyes, the teens of St. Benedict High gather here on Fridays. The rest of the week belongs to school and family—but weekends belong to the river. And the river belongs to Beau Devereaux.  The only child of a powerful family, Beau can do no wrong. Handsome. Charming. Intelligent. The star quarterback of the football team. The “prince” of St. Benedict is the ultimate catch. He is also a psychopath. A dirty family secret buried for years, Beau’s evil grows unchecked. In the shadows of the ruined St. Francis Abbey, he commits unspeakable acts on his victims and ensures their silence with threats and i...

Book Review: Again, but Better by Christine Riccio

Title: Again, but Better Author: Christine Riccio Publisher: Wednesday Books Publication Date: May 7, 2019 Synopsis: From one of the most followed booktubers today, comes Again, but Better , a story about second chances, discovering yourself, and being brave enough to try again.  Shane has been doing college all wrong. Pre-med, stellar grades, and happy parents…sounds ideal—but Shane's made zero friends, goes home every weekend, and romance…what’s that? Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time's a ticking, and she needs a change—there's nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She's going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure!  Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart. Shane comes to find that, with the right amount...

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