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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

🎄Merry Christmas☃️

Wishing everyone a Wonderful Christmas and a Very Happy New Year

Sunday Funnies #27: Batman and Robin - A Christmas Peril

This Batman comic book is dated February/March 1945, but it appeared on newsstands and candy stores on December 11, 1944. World War II hadn't ended yet, but by then it was clear that the war was going in favor of the Allied Forces and would soon be over. Note the request to back the 6th War Loan on the cover of the comic. The public had a chance to purchase war bonds for this loan beginning on Monday, November 20, 1944 until Saturday, December 16, 1944. This loan has an interesting history which you can read about HERE .  The comic had several stories in it, but one that follows was the only Christmas story and it's in interesting parody of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol  which it completely owns on page 1 of the comic. The story has nothing to do with the war, but it's an interesting one, nevertheless.

Book Review: Prince of Air and Darkness by M.A. Grant

Title: Prince of Air and Darkness Author: M.A. Grant Series: The Darkest Court, #1 Publisher: Carina Press Publication Date: February 25, 2019 Synopsis: Phineas Smith has been cursed with a power no one could control.  Roark Lyne is his worst enemy and his only hope. The only human student at Mather’s School of Magick, Phineas Smith has a target on his back. Born with the rare ability to tap into unlimited magick, he finds both Faerie Courts want his allegiance—and will do anything to get it. They don’t realize he can’t levitate a feather, much less defend the Faerie Realm as it slips into civil war. Unseelie Prince Roark Lyne, Phineas’s roommate—and self-proclaimed arch nemesis—is beautiful and brave and a pain in the ass. Phineas can’t begin to sort through their six years of sexual tension masquerading as mutual dislike. But Roark is also the only one able to help Finn tame his magick.  Trusting Roark’s mysterious motives may be foolish; not accepting his temporary prote...

Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki, illustrated by Dom Lee

When Baseball Saved Us was published 25 years ago, it was described by reviewers as being about an important but neglected part of American history. Well, times have changed and more books for children about the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII have been written about this shameful period in our country's history. Yet, Baseball Saved Us is as important a book today as it was when it was first published. The story is told in the first person by a young boy in an unnamed internment camp, whose father has decided to make a baseball field in the desert where the camp is located to give people something to do. Not particularly excited about that, the boy recalls that in school before being order to leave his home with his family, he was never picked to play on any sports teams when the other kids were choosing sides because of he was so much shorter and smaller that the other kids. Everyone pulls together and soon the baseball field is finished, mattress ticking is turned ...

The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler written and illustrated by John Hendrix

In its starred review, Kirkus calls The Faithful Spy  an audacious graphic biography and it certainly is that. But then again, it is about a man whose whole being centered around theology and his own religious beliefs at a time when these beliefs were about to be sorely tested. Illustrated in bold teal, red, and black against black, white, teal or red backgrounds, this is equally a story about Adolf Hitler's seizure of power and of the rise of the German resistance. Twins Sabine and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were born in Berlin, Germany 1906, second to last children in a large Lutheran family, one drawn more to science than theology. Dietrich, however, developed an interest in theology early in life, but felt that something was missing from the church he loved so much. He realized that something was causing it to feel static, to feel like just an academic exercise, and after a trip to Rome, he began struggling to discover how he could change that and make the church dynamic. In 1930, Die...

Skyward: The Story of Female Pilots in WWII written and illustrated by Sally Deng

It's 1927 and three girls living in different countries - Hazel, a Chinese American living in San Francisco, Marlene living in the English countryside, and Lilya, living in a small town in Russia - all have the same dream - they want to fly. What could feel more freeing that being up in the heavens in a plane? As time went by, their dream of flying still very much alive, the girls did learn how to pilot a plane and experience the joy they knew they would find in the air. Marlene learned first with the help of her brother, getting a pilot's license even before she got her driver's license. Encouraged by her father, Hazel took lessons whenever she had the money to pay for them, reading books about the science of flying in between. Lilya's family wanted her to become a doctor not a pilot, so she secretly joined a high school flying club, paying for flight time by working in a factory. When war broke out in 1939, and men left jobs to fight, women wondered what they could do...

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Book Blitz: The Witch of Willow Hall by Hester Fox (Excerpt)

Title: The Witch of Willow Hall Author: Hester Fox Publisher: Graydon House Publication Date: October 2, 2018 Synopsis: Two centuries after the Salem witch trials, there’s still one witch left in Massachusetts. But she doesn’t even know it. New Oldbury, 1821 In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters—Catherine, Lydia, and Emeline—flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall. The estate seems sleepy and idyllic. But a subtle menace creeps into the atmosphere, remnants of a dark history that call to Lydia, and to the youngest, Emeline. All three daughters will be irrevocably changed by what follows, but none more than Lydia, who must draw on a power she never knew she possessed if she wants to protect those she loves. For Willow Hall’s secrets will rise, in the end… About the Author: Hester comes to writing from a background in museum work and historical archaeology. She loves the Gothic, the lurid, the dark...so long as the ending is a happy one....

Book Blitz: Wings of Flesh and Bones by Cathrina Constantine (Excerpt + Giveaway)

Title: Wings of Flesh and Bones Author: Cathrina Constantine Publication Date: April 13, 2018 Synopsis: An Angel. A Witch. A Demon. And A Choice. Creatures from outer realms suck, as any gatekeeper worth their salt will tell you. Welcome to Rogan’s life, an orphaned seventeen-year-old who lives and trains with other misfits under her uncle’s roof, keeping Earth safe from non-human realm jumpers. Rogan’s biggest issue concerns her uncle’s short leash with her freedom—that is of course, until she’s taken by a notorious witch, and her life begins to unravel. Soon, the supernatural beauty discovers there’s a reason her uncle kept such a tight lock on her whereabouts, and that she has more than angel blood running through her veins.  Eighteen-year-old Max is an angel, and Rogan’s mentor and guardian. He’s well aware of her tenacious inability to obey orders, though he also knows she’s a fierce fighter. When he’s involved in a scheme that ultimately gets Rogan kidnapped, he must battl...

Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker's Story by Joseph Bruchac, pictures by Liz Amini-Holmes

In 1929, when he was only 8 years old, Betoli was removed from his Native family and sent to the Navajo boarding school at Fort Defiance, Arizona, the very same place where Navajos had been held captive in the 1860s by the United States Army, after a forced long walk of 300 miles. At Fort Defiance, Betoli had his long, black hair cut short, was given the English name Chester, and forbidden to speak his native Navajo language. If children were caught speaking Navajo, their mouth would be washed out with yellow soap by a matron. Every year, Chester returned to his family during the summer and kept his native ways. Then, in 1941, when he was in tenth grade, the United States entered World War II. In 1942, the US Marine Corps visited the Reservation. They wanted men who could speak English and Navajo to develop a code for sending messages that the Japanese codebreakers couldn't figure out. Initially, only 29 Navajos, including Chester, were chosen out of the many who volunteered, formi...

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