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The sons of one family fight on different sides while the youngest tries to make sense of the war.

The Aleuts were dramatically affected by both Japanese and the American forces during World War II. How they were relocated from their small island in the Pacific and relocated to the coast of Alaska is hauntingly told by Vera, a young Aleutian/Caucasian girl.

Alicia was only 13 years old when she began saving Jewish lives in war-ravaged Poland. In this nonfiction account of the Holocaust, Alicia recalls how she stood on her brother’s grave and vowed she would tell his story.

Little did Gerda know that her father’s insistence that she wear her hiking boots one hot, summer day would be her salvation from death. Gerda was able to see good even in the darkest of moments while struggling to survive in several concentration and slave labor camps. From January through April 1945, it was those boots that saved her from the cold during a brutal, 300-mile death march from a labor camp in western Germany to Czechoslovakia where she was the only one of 120 women who survived.

Rachek always begs her Grandmother Oma to tell the story of Oma’s two lives: the one before American and the one after. The first part recounts her marriage prior to World War I and then her family’s move from Poland to Germany to seek safety. Ironically, two of her three daughters spent time in concentration camps but all survived and were reunited in the United States. The illustrations really add to readers’ understanding of this horrible time in history.

Mowat retells his own experiences as a young soldier during World War II. At first he was very idealistic and romanticized the war effort but after exposure to many atrocities, Farley grows and learns painfully to see war as it is.

The authors have adapted their 1998 play of the same title into this easy-to-read novel where Nicole Burns, a contemporary 10th-grade student who questions why they have to read The Diary of Anne Frank, is mysteriously transported in time into the person of Nicole Bernhardt, a 15-year-old Jewish girl living in occupied France. Nicole meets Anne Frank who helps her see the value of studying the Holocaust as she returns as Nicole Burns.

The Civil War has broken out and Annie Sinclair’s Virginia home, Hickory Heights, is right in the line of battle. Caught up in the rising conflict, Annie and her mother tend to wounded soldiers while Annie’s older brother, Laurence, enlists in the Confederate cavalry under JEB Stuart.

While his father is in prison for treating a leader of the democracy movement, 15-year-old Chiko is drafted into the Burmese military. Trained to fight the rebel Karenni people, Chiko soon finds himself at the mercy of a young Karenni rebel fighter whose village was attacked by Burmese soldiers. Will the two remain enemies?

During World War II, Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps. Isolated and bored, baseball became a life and soul-saving pastime which successfully brought very different people together. Darkly hued illustrations evoke the difficulty of the time, based on the author’s family story. Spanish version available.

The author was only six years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. She and her mother go into hiding with the help of some Gentiles, but their hiding place happens to be next door to the Gestapo headquarters. For the two years they are in hiding, Nelly records her fears, hopes, and dreams through art and in a journal.

Fourteen-year-old Louise Keller and her family leave Ohio for the Philippines in order to join a missionary camp in 1941. Soon after their arrival, the Japanese have invaded and established internment camps that Louise avoids for a time in the jungle but is later captured. This story is a bit different in that it is an American version of being held in a Japanese Internment camp established by the Japanese in the Philippines.

The Civil War was lost long before the first shot was ever fired, thanks to deep and violent divisions of class and political allegiance that resulted in “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”

The story of the invasion and chaotic pullout of troops from Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 will appeal to those who like military stories. Bowden provides plenty of action and raises difficult questions about U.S. foreign and military policy.

Set in the time of the Crusades, this is a horse story, a war story, and a love story, all in one tale of historical fiction. This book is the first in a trilogy, but completely satisfying on its own.

In two volumes, Boxers & Saints tells two parallel stories. The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. Little Bao, inspired by visions of the Chinese gods, joins a violent uprising against the Western interlopers. Against all odds, their grass-roots rebellion is successful. But in the second volume, Yang lays out the opposite side of the conflict. A girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. As the Boxer Rebellion gains momentum, Vibiana must decide whether to abandon her Christian friends or to commit herself fully to Christianity.

Twelve-year-old Sora and her eight-year-old brother, Youngsoo, must try to escape North Korea’s oppressive Communist regime and survive three hundred miles of warzone in winter in 1950.

In the final days of the Việt Nam War, Hằng takes her little brother, Linh, to the airport, determined to find a way to safety in America. In a split second, Linh is ripped from her arms — and Hằng is left behind in the war-torn country. Six years later, Hằng has made the brutal journey from Việt Nam and is now in Texas as a refugee. She doesn’t know how she will find the little brother who was taken from her until she meets LeeRoy, a city boy with big rodeo dreams, who decides to help her. Hằng is overjoyed when she reunites with Linh. But when she realizes he doesn’t remember her, their family, or Việt Nam, her heart is crushed. Though the distance between them feels greater than ever, Hằng has come so far that she will do anything to bridge the gap. Rip Van Winkle Award and NPR Best Books of 2019.

This nonfiction book is carefully researched and includes photos and source notes to add to its credibility. It is fascinating to see how Hitler managed to brainwash children into doing things totally contrary to their parents’ values.

When the Nazis invaded Denmark on Tuesday, April 9, 1940, the people of this tiny country to the north of Germany awoke to a devastating surprise. The government of Denmark surrendered quietly, and the Danes were ordered to go about their daily lives as if nothing had changed. But everything had changed.

When Mariah and her younger brother Zeke are freed from slavery, Mariah packs her belongings and her brother into a wagon driven by Caleb, a free Black man, who helps them join General Sherman’s treacherous march through Georgia until he is forced to leave them behind when he must cross with the troops at Ebenezer Creek and leave Mariah trapped as Rebel forces draw near.

Thirteen-year-old Azad knows nothing but war while growing up in a predominantly Kurdish town in Sardasht, Iran. Iran’s new religious leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini wants to eliminate the Kurds while Iraq’s Saddam Hussein’s would like to occupy that part of Iran. Readers get a glimpse into the heart of this young Kurdish refugee and will experience the loss and hope of emigration.

A chronicle of the incredible correspondence between California librarian Clara Breed and young Japanese American internees during World War II. These actual letters, replete with spelling and grammar mistakes, show how one person can make a positive difference in the lives of so many.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US entered World War II in December 1941 with only 44 Naval submarines — many of them dating from the 1920s. With the Pacific battleship fleet decimated after Pearl Harbor, it was up to the feisty and heroic sailors aboard the US submarines to stop the Japanese invasion across the Pacific.