Chuyển đến nội dung chính

Bài đăng

Đang hiển thị bài đăng từ Tháng 3, 2019

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

Sunday Funnies #30: Women's History Month

I thought I would end Women's History Month 2019 with some Peanuts comic strips of Lucy paying homage to her grandmother and the work she did in WWII. As always, Charles Schultz was ahead of his time with his Peanuts comic strips. November 8, 1976 November 9, 1976 November 11, 1976 November 12, 1976

The American Agent (a Maisie Dobbs Mystery #15) by Jacqueline Winspear

It's September, 1940, and the German Luftwaffe is blitzing bombs down on London nightly. Maisie, who you may recall was a nurse on the battlefields in France during WWI, and her best friend Priscilla Partridge have volunteered to be ambulance drivers, doing what they can night after night to help the injured. One night, a young American journalist, Catherine Saxon, rides along with Maisie and Priscilla. Catherine is writing accounts of the Blitz for Americans and is hoping to become one of "Murrow's Boys" - American reporters based in London, working for Edward R. Murrow on BBC radio. Unfortunately, the next day, Maisie learns that Catherine Saxon has been murdered and her old friend Robert MacFarlane of Scotland Yard wants Maisie to be part of the investigation to find out who killed her and why. Oh, and he wants Maisie to work with Mark Scott, an American agent attached to the Department of Justice. And yes, if you've been keeping up with Maisie, this is the sam...

Sunday Funnies #29: Carrier Pigeons

A pigeon played a much larger roll in I Survived the Battle of D-Day 1944 than I indicated in my review. In fact, carrier pigeons played an important roll in both World War I and World War II. I thought the cartoon below was a nice homage to carrier pigeons. It is a George Wolfe cartoon, but I have unfortunately the actual citation, though I believe it is also from the Saturday Evening Post, just like the one I posted for Women's History Month .  

I Survived the Battle of D-Day, 1944 (I Survived Series #18) by Lauren Tarshis

Lauren Tarshis's I Survived series has introduced young readers to a variety of significant, but scary events that have occurred in both recent and distant history through a young eyewitness protagonist. With the same themes of courage and resilience the protagonist didn't realize they possessed, they become active participants in these events, providing the reader with an exciting fast-paced story and lots of historical background information. In her latest book, Tarshis takes her readers to France's Normandy coast just before and after the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. Living there in the town of Le Roc, Paul Colbert, 11, has waited and waited for the Allied Forces to come and rescue France from the hands of the Nazis and end the war. After France had fallen to the Nazis in 1940, his father had been arrested and sent to a German prison camp; then his best friend Gerard and his family were arrested by the Nazis because they were Jewish and had disappeared. Later, Paul ha...

Fish for Jimmy: Inspired by One Family's Experience in a Japanese American Internment Camp written and illustrated by Katie Yamasaki

When people of Japanese descent were rounded up and sent to live in internment camps shortly after the United States entered World War II, they found themselves eating a very different diet than the fresh fish, vegetables, and fruit that had been available when they had lived near the Pacific Ocean. Jimmy and his older brother Taro are no exception to enjoying fresh food, after all their parents own a Farmer's Market. But early in December, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, their father is taken away by three men in the FBI. The family can no longer live in their home and run their Farmer's Market, and Jimmy, Taro and their mother find themselves "forced to live in tiny barracks surrounded by guards." Confused about what is happening, Jimmy refuses to eat the unfamiliar food he is served. And no matter how much they try to coax him, no one can get Jimmy to eat. Although everyone is worried about him, Jimmy just doesn't understand why his family isn't living in...

Sunday Funnies #28: Women's History Month

Source: George Wolfe, Saturday Evening Post, June 19, 1943

The Orphan Band of Springdale by Anne Nesbet

It's 1941 and Augusta "Gusta" Hoopes Neubronner, 11, is on a bus traveling with her French horn from New York City to Springdale, Maine by herself. She wasn't always by herself, but she had to leave her parents for financial reasons and go to live with her grandmother in Maine. Gusta's mother had remained in NYC working. Her German-born father had traveled with her until he had to abruptly get off the bus in Portland, Maine when two men boarded looking for him. Gusta's father is a union organizer, an accused communist, and therefore a wanted man. To Gusta's surprise, her grandmother, Clementine Hoopes, and her Aunt Marion Hoopes run a small orphanage in their house and were not expecting her. Nevertheless, after reading the letter Gusta's mother sent with her, they welcome her into the house and pretty soon she is assimilated into their daily routine. She quickly becomes friend's with Josie, an orphan already in high school, and her cousin Bess, wh...

Standing Up Against Hate: How Black Women in the Army Helped Change the Course of WWII by Mary Cronk Farrell

I've just reread Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis, a novel about one woman who had enlisted in the Women's Army Corps during WWII and was part of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. I've always thought that the author had really captured the difficulties of being an African American woman in the armed services at that time. And now, Mary Cronk Farrell has written a book that explores these difficulties in depth and introduces readers to some of the courageous African American women who served their country with determination, dignity and patriotism. Farrell begins with the creation of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps in May 1942. Though women in the WAAC were not considered to be military personnel and so they had no rank, no entitlements for dependents, and received less pay than men in the military, women signed up anyway, wanting to do their patriotic duty for their country. Thanks to the efforts of Eleanor Roosevelt and Civil Rights leader Dr. Mary McLe...

Bài đăng phổ biến từ blog này

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...

Free $100