Jackson superbly blends the history into her narrative. It splits wide open when a 14-year-old boy from Chicago named Emmett Till goes missing. The ugly brutality of the Jim Crow South is recounted in dulcet, poetic tones, creating a harsh and fascinating blend.įact and fiction pair in the story of Rose Lee Carter, 13, as she copes with life in a racially divided world. It’s great to see these kids “so enthusiastic about committing high treason.” (historical note) (Historical fiction. The fictional plotters-based on a mix of several real anti-Hitler resistance cells-are portrayed with a genuine humor, giving them the space to feel alive even in such a slim volume. They escape capture, rescue each other when they’re caught out during an air raid, and willingly put themselves repeatedly at risk to catch a spy. Max and Gerta are merely (and realistically) cogs in the adults’ plans, but there’s plenty of room for their own heroism. She enlists Max and Gerta as couriers who sneak forged identification papers to Jews in hiding. Despite her charming levity, Prussian aristocrat and cell leader Frau Becker is grimly aware of the stakes. They meet a colorful band of upper-class types who seem almost too whimsical to be serious. During one such raid, a mortally wounded man stumbles into the white German family’s home and gasps out his last wish: “The Führer must die.” With this nighttime visitation, Max and Gerta discover their parents have been part of a resistance cell, and the siblings want in. Max, 12, lives with his parents and his older sister in a Berlin that’s under constant air bombardment.

Near the end of World War II, two kids join their parents in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. Translated from the Portuguese, this Hans Christian Andersen award winner weaves together a mildly enigmatic yet unexciting plot that purports themes of freedom and justice accompanied by slightly cubist-style charcoal or pastel drawings. Told in the first person from the boy’s point of view, the “visits” slowly piece together the slave child’s mysterious bits of information later verified by Leo’s grandmother. Rosario wants the truth recorded and remembered and requests Mariano write it down. Only her little brother Amaro escaped and it turns out he became the only heir to the plantation. With three friends, Leo, Elisa and Tere, Mariano experiences a series of séance visits during the late night hours as Rosario tells them the history of her family and how the laws overturning slavery caused their cruel master to lock his slaves in a burning barn rather than grant them freedom. When Mariano’s mother and friend decide to restore and convert an old plantation house into an inn, the ghostly apparition of Rosario, a slave child from the previous century, brings to light a story of cruel mass murder in 19th-century Brazil.

From Another World by Ana Maria Machado