“As long as I reside in their minds and hearts, I will never truly be gone.”—from War Cries: Unheard Voices, Unmarked Graves by Kerry Arquette. Never forget. These are the top 10 recommended Holocaust/WWII books for mature teens.
1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
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“Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.”
2. The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne
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“Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance.
“But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.”
3. Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys
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“Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life–until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father’s prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive?”
4. War Cries: Unheard Voices, Unmarked Graves by Kerry Arquette
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“The devastation caused by World War II is described by historians in terms of military strategies and battles, the toll on economics, and the numbers of dead. But only the stories of those whose lives were changed or lost, can convey the true horror of the war. These were people very much like ourselves—men, women, children, siblings, poets, soldiers, students, professionals, laborers, givers, takers, jokers, dancers, lovers, dreamers, cowards and brave. Each is the hero of his own tale. Each tale underscores the uniqueness of human perception based upon personality and circumstances.
“By listening to the voices of those with stories to tell, we can grow in our appreciation of what it means to be human.
“WAR CRIES: UNHEARD STORIES, UNMARKED GRAVES provides a stage for the voices—many inspired by people present in Europe during World War II—to speak their truths.
“The characters behind the poems come from different religions, different professions, and different ideologies.Like all of us, they want to be heard. They want to be understood. Most of all…they want to be remembered.
“As long as I reside in their minds and hearts, I will never truly be gone.“
5. Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit
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“Kraków, 1939. A million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. This is no place to grow up. Anna Łania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father, a linguistics professor, during their purge of intellectuals in Poland. She’s alone.
“And then Anna meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall, a skilled deceiver with more than a little magic up his sleeve. And when the soldiers in the streets look at him, they see what he wants them to see.”
6. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
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“A Michael L. Printz Award Honor book that was called ‘a fiendishly-plotted mind game of a novel’ in The New York Times, Code Name Verity is a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other.”
7. I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson
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“The author was 13 when the Nazis invaded Hungary. In intimate and excruciating detail, Livia Bitton-Jackson describes how her young life was transformed by her experiences, from suspension from school to surviving the horrors of Auschwitz.”
8. The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
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“Hannah is tired of holiday gatherings−all her family ever talks about is the past. In fact, it seems to her that’s what they do every Jewish holiday. But this year’s Passover Seder will be different−Hannah will be mysteriously transported into the past . . . and only she knows the unspeakable horrors that await.”
9. Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
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“Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion.
“On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman’s frantic plea to find a person–a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.
“Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary, gripping novel from a bright new voice.”
10. Once by Morris Gleitzman
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“Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn’t know anything about the war, and thinks he’s only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them–straight into the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland. To Felix, everything is a story: Why did he get a whole carrot in his soup? It must be sign that his parents are coming to get him. Why are the Nazis burning books? They must be foreign librarians sent to clean out the orphanage’s outdated library. But as Felix’s journey gets increasingly dangerous, he begins to see horrors that not even stories can explain.
“Despite his grim suroundings, Felix never loses hope. Morris Gleitzman takes a painful subject and expertly turns it into a story filled with love, friendship, and even humor.”
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