New Booklist on BookGuide: HerStory - Women Heroes of WWII

Are you interested in the real-life histories of the many women who were unsung heroes of the World War II era? Would you like to learn more about women like Noor Inayat Khan, Hannie Schaft, Mildred Harnack, Ola Mildred Rexroat, Elizebeth Smith, Dita Kraus, Nancy Love, Odette Sansom, Aline Griffith, Irene Sendler, Vera Atkins, and more?

If so, then you'll want to check out the recent HerStory: Women Heroes of WWII booklist addition to the libraries BookGuide readers advisory resources. Inspired by a new list on the A Mighty Girl website, we expanded on their titles, to offer up as many as 75 recommended reading suggestions for those who are fascinated by this historical topic!

Check out this new booklist on BookGuide at the following link:

HerStory: Books About Women Heroes of WWII

Book Review: The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

The Diamond Eye

by Kate Quinn (Quinn)

 

Snipers are assumed to be cold, hard, calculating loners, or so one would imagine regarding the top Russian sharpshooter during World War II. But in reality, one of the best Russian sharpshooters was a pretty but nerdy university history student named Lyudmila (Mila) Pavlichenko. Many did not believe that the small woman with a young son at home could possibly have an official kill count of 309. But she was often underestimated.

 

At the beginning of the book Mila is a young mother, working on her dissertations about Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the Ukraine’s accession to Russia, studying to get her university degree and divorce her boastful cheating husband. Mila enlists the same day war is declared in Russia and works her way from ditch digger, through the ranks, to a sharpshooter leading her own platoon, instructing and training new Russian sharpshooters. She slowly earns respect working her way up a man’s world, being hospitalized for numerous injuries, but always wanting to quickly return to defend her land.

 

As with her other books about remarkable women in World War II, Quinn recounts the tale of “Lady Death” using much of the subject’s own accounts of the real people and places in her life. Quinn adds or combines characters when necessary to retell Mila’s incredible life story, and takes some liberties with the historical record if needed, she says, to serve the novel.

 

And of course Quinn has to add a little of her own spice to give the story an element of urgency. In The Diamond Eye, another sniper has been enlisted by unknown sources to take out President Roosevelt and frame Mila for his death. We are privy to his dark plan to kill the president and use Mila’s people against her, all of which is purely fictional.

 

I greatly enjoyed The Diamond Eye, just as I did The Rose Code. We feel the apprehension, the fear, the pain, the grief, the humor, the love, and the anger that motivated Mila and made her more than just a pretty-faced Russian spokesperson, one who was able to win the friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt. I enjoyed how most chapters began with the official statement about an event from Mila’s memoirs and is followed by her unofficial version. If you are a fan of World War II fiction, you are going to love The Diamond Eye.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Huntress and The Rose Code by Kate Quinn or Three Sisters by Heather Morris.)

 

( official The Diamond Eye page on the official Kate Quinn web site )

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: Dunkirk

Dunkirk

directed by Christopher Nolan (DVD Dunkirk)

 

Dunkirk is a masterpiece of tone and atmosphere. Featuring a large cast, the storyline moves between various different characters during the tense and dramatic period of time when a group of thousands of allied troops and civilians awaits evacuation from Dunkirk and advancing German forces during World War II. Action takes place on land, on the sea, and in the air, as a flotilla of civilian pleasure craft from England joins forces with the military to cross the choppy English Channel in hopes of rescuing those who are trapped.

 

The thing that will stick out in my memory about Dunkirk is not any individual performance, though Kenneth Branagh does lead a stellar cast. Instead, it is the film’s soundtrack and sound editing that will forever be branded in my mind. There is a constantly building sense of tension and despair — the music and a vague sense of buzzing/vibration do not let up for a single second, ratcheting up the viewer’s sense of dread.

 

Admittedly, I didn’t end up truly invested in the fate of any individual character, but the viewing of this film was definitely still an unforgettable experience.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try any of Christopher Nolan‘s other films. Also: 1917, a different war but the same escalating sense of foreboding.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film ) | ( official Facebook page for Dunkirk )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan

Snow Treasure

by Marie McSwigan (jPB McSwigan)

 

In WWII, the Norwegian government managed to transport and evacuate its entire store of gold just before, and during, the Nazi invasion of Norway. The Nazis knew the gold was being moved and very nearly captured it. The gold was smuggled out in hundreds of crates and barrels on trains, local trucks, and private fishing vessels frequently while under attack. The treasure ended up in Britain, then was transported across the Atlantic. The entire amount, with only the loss of a few gold coins, arrived safely in the US and Canada. With the funds safely secured, Norway was able to maintain its government in exile and participate in the allied war effort.

 

The value was approximately more than $54 million in 1940 (equivalent to $1.8 billion in 2015). Imagine how the tide of the war could have turned if the Nazis had been able to get their hands on that amount of funding.

 

Snow Treasure is a fictional account of that evacuation, and involves the children of the town assisting their parents in moving the gold by hiding it on their sleds as they played. It had a Disneyesque feel to the story, and even with the improbable idea of letting children participate in this dangerous mission, I still enjoyed the characters and the tension in the story as they successfully smuggled out the gold.

 

An easy afternoon read of a fantastic story.

 

( Wikipedia page for Snow Treasure )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: We Hereby Refuse: Japanese-American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

We Hereby Refuse: Japanese-American Resistance to WartimeIncarceration
written by Frank Abe and Timika Nimura, with art by Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki (YA PB (Graphic Novel) Abe)

This serious and thought-provoking graphic novel explores the experiences of three young Japanese-Americans during the World War II years, following the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war against the Empire of Japan. Hajime Jim Akutsu is a 22-year-old young man in a family that runs a shoe repair shop in Seattle, and is studying engineering in college. Hiroshi Kashiwagi is a 19-year-old young man living with his family on a farm just outside Sacramento, waiting to enroll in college. And Mitsuye Endo is a 21-year-old typist for a California state agency. She lives in Sacramento as well. Hastily made government decisions lead to these three (and their families) being sent to various Internment camps in the interior of the U.S. There, over time, they and hundreds of thousands of other Japanese-Americans face loyalty tests, restrictions of their freedoms, and the hatred and distrust of many Caucasian-Americans.

 

We Hereby Refuse does a tremendous job of showing the inhumane and un-American treatment afforded to both natural-born U.S. citizens and Japanese immigrants who had assimilated into American life and considered the United States to be their new country. The parallels to treatment of other ethnic groups in more recent years is painfully obvious. We Hereby Refuse is a cautionary tale that anyone unaware of our checkered past should read, to open their eyes to a dark chapter in American history.

 

There are two artists’ work represented in this volume — alternating different parts of the story. Their styles are considerably different, and I’ll have to admit that I found the edgy look of one of them a bit off-putting. Other readers may not have an issue with that. The inclusion of dozens of historical figures from the WWII era really brought the story to life.

 

Highly recommended, especially in an era when graphic novels like Maus, which explore uncomfortable historical truths, can face banning from school curriculums!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Allegiance — the soundtrack to a Broadway show based on the experiences of actor George Takei and his family, who also were placed in internment camps during WWII, They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Steven Scott, Harmony Becky and Justin Eisinger, or Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds Histor by Art Spiegelman.)

 

( Frank Abe’s official resisters.com web site )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: Hanged at Auschwitz: An Extraordinary Memoir of Survival by Sim Kessel

Hanged at Auschwitz: An Extraordinary Memoir of Survival

by Sim Kessel (940.531 Kes)

 

This is the true story of Sim Kessel, a Jewish Frenchman, and member of the French Underground for two years before the Nazis captured him and sent him to Auschwitz.

 

As the title indicates, he really was hanged but something went wrong with the rope and he survived. He also avoided being executed by handgun and via the gas chamber. As Kessel writes, “…survival boiled down to pure luck, the result of successive tosses of the dice. Each lucky throw granted a few days’ reprieve, or at most a few weeks…And so to be a survivor of Auschwitz is really nothing to boast about. In that hell there was no survival of the fittest. Intelligence, courage, knowledge, vitality, the desire to live — all counted for nothing…common misery reduced everyone to the same level, erasing all values, breaking down all wills…life or death depended on the whim of soldiers and kapos.”

 

Kessel begins his book with the story of his capture, and provides a riveting narrative of his two years at Auschwitz. He doesn’t gloss over the horrors but neither does he provide a constant stream of blood and gore. I can’t say I enjoyed this book (as one would enjoy a pleasurable activity), but rather found it compelling and hard to put down. His was such a fascinating story that I put aside all my other books to concentrate on this.

I wish he had provided more of a background of himself and his family prior to WWII, and an epilogue of his life and recovery — physical, mental, and emotional — that he writes could not have happened without his family. I wanted a short bio of his life after the war but he ended the story so abruptly telling us, “A few hours later, I was finally able to rejoin my family in their temporary home at Villeparisis. And then my true rehabilitation began, for without them, I would never have recovered my enjoyment of life.”

 

Regardless, this story will stay with you, and I highly recommend this book.

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: A Call to Spy

A Call to Spy

(DVD Call)

 

I first saw this on the new DVD releases display at WalMart, and realized I’d never seen any promos for it at the time of its 2019 theatrical release. Seeing that one of its stars was Stana Katic, who starred as Kate Beckett for seven seasons on the ABC detective series Castle, of which I was a huge fan, I immediately placed a hold on it through the LibraryLNK app — and then it turned out my wife got a library copy before my hold came in.

 

A Call to Spy is a gritty and emotional World War II story, based on real life events. Katic plays Vera Atkins, a Romanian-born female British intelligence officer, whose work for the Special Operations Executive in the early years of the war included the recruitment of 37 female operatives, who were sent undercover into hot spots occupied by Axis powers, particularly throughout France, to create resistance cells and report back via wireless on enemy movements. These women were in deadly danger at all times, especially those responsible for using the wireless — an activity constantly watched for and targeted for reprisals by the Nazis.

 

This film focuses on her efforts along those lines with two specific women — Noor Inayat Khan (played by Radhika Apte), and Virginia Hall (played by Sarah Megan Thomas — who also wrote the screenplay). Hall was an American who had been injured and supplied with an artificial leg, and Khan was a British Muslim. Both were sent into France, with differing levels of success. Meanwhile, on the home front, Atkins fights against prejudice and distrust amongst the all-male intelligence command structure.

 

This was a compelling film, and made me curious about the real-life story of Atkins and the other women. Research indicates that this film simplifies some of the complex situations they all found themselves in, and Atkins had a very up-and-down relationship with British intelligence. But for a 2-hour movie that needed to streamline the story somewhat, I found this to be excellent — both entertaining and educational. And the performances were top notch, particularly Thomas and Apte, who do a good job of showing how dire their characters’ situations can become. Strongly recommended, especially for fans of war films, espionage films, or films focusing on strong female characters — in this case real historical figures.

 

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official A Call to Spy web site ]

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Services

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin

The Last Bookshop in London: A Tale of World War II

by Madeline Martin (Martin)

 

Recently I have been on a kick reading historical fiction, especially World War II fiction, and I was pleased to see this new book by Madeline Martin. I wasn’t disappointed. The Last Bookshop in London not only vividly depicts what it must have been like living day-to-day during World War II, but also how books help us grow, explore new places, and continue to find hope.

 

The story begins in August 1939 when a young woman, Grace Bennett, moves to London with her best friend Viv. After her mother passed away Grace had been living with an unkind uncle and his family, taking care of his shop in the small town of Drayton, Norfolk. But now she is setting off to London for a fresh start with her mother’s friend Mrs. Weatherford and her son Colin. Because her uncle refused to write her a letter of recommendation, Grace is grateful that Mrs. Weatherford has lined up a job for her at a small local bookshop, Primrose Hills Books, where she can work and earn a recommendation letter.

 

But when she shows up the first day for work, it’s not what she expects. The shop is dusty. Books lie everywhere, many are still boxed in the back room. There is no semblance of order. And the bookstore owner, with his nose constantly buried in a book, tells her he doesn’t want her assistance. Lacking courage, Grace returns home dejected. However, the job details are quickly ironed out by the strong-willed Mrs. Weatherford and Grace begins her six-month temp job for Mr. Evans. Grace whips the shop into shape, cleaning out the grime, putting books in order, and creating attractive displays. Not a reader herself, Grace gets ideas on how a bookshop should be organized after visiting the prime book shops on Pasternoster Row.

 

And into the story walks George Anderson. Intelligent and attractive, they hit it off. But then Great Britain goes to war. He is called up as a pilot before they can go to tea. But he leaves her something, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. And it changes her life forever. She becomes locked in the book’s grasp and she discovers what it is like to be transported to other places and live the lives and experiences of other people without leaving home. Grace then turns that new love into her work at the bookstore: reading books, recommending books, and helping others in London find that same escape from their troubles through reading.

 

Throughout the book, Grace invests herself in her new community, becoming an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden to help during blackouts, then bombings. She reads to fellow Londoners in the local shelter to create a distraction while the bombs drop and the city burns. And when Primrose Hill Books becomes “the last bookshop in London” she even offers other bombed book stores an opportunity to sell their undamaged wares.

 

The author doesn’t overdo it in terms of describing the blood and gore, but she also doesn’t leave out the hardships of war. Characters you come to love in the book fall victim to bombs and fires; and as an ARP warden, Grace isn’t spared the sights of these horrors. In order to keep calm and carry on, she attempts to pack those experiences in a neat box, locked tight and set in a dark, dark corner of her mind where someday she will carry them like scars.

 

I enjoyed and would recommend The Last Bookshop in London because it vividly depicts through imagery and storytelling how it felt to live during wartime in London — how it felt to keep losing everything but yet to carry on. I especially enjoyed the message that hope and a new beginning can always be found for those who look for it. And the book will also strike a chord with avid readers who remember how it felt to discover their first book love.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Lilac Girls by Marsha Hall Kelly, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah or Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian.]

[ official The Last Bookshop in London page on the official Madeline Martin web site ]

 

Recommended by Cindy K.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

DVD Review: Jojo Rabbit

Jojo Rabbit
(DVD Jojo)

Jojo Rabbit is based on the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, and was one of the finalists for the Best Picture award at the Academy Awards (for films in 2019). It won Taika Waititi the award for Best Adapated Screenplay (he also directed it, and was one of the supporting cast members).

Waititi’s trademark oddball humor and sense of surrealism are in full play, in this film set in the closing days of World War II, in a large German city (probably Nuremburg). Johannes “Jojo” Betzler is a young German boy, being raised by his single mother, Rosie (played by Scarlett Johansson). Jojo is obsessed with German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, and as the film begins he is preparing to join the Hitler Youth group. Jojo’s obsessions include seeing Hitler as his own imaginary friend (portrayed by director Waititi). When an accident in Hitler Youth training results in Jojo being injured, he then becomes a volunteer propagandist. Frequently stuck at home, Jojo is by himself one day when he investigates noises behind a wall and discovers a young Jewish girl (Elsa, portrayed by Thomasin McKenzie) hiding there, protected by his mother.

The film then explores quirky character relationships as Jojo has to decided whether to report on his own family, and as he grows to know Elsa better, his preconceptions about the Jews are altered. As Allied forces close in on the city in the war’s final days, Jojo is forced to face difficult truths and adjust is world view.

This film was astonishing. The performances, particularly that of youth Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo, Waititi as Hitler, McKenzie as Elsa, and Johansson as Rosie, are excellent. The support cast features quirky performances by Sam Rockwell, Stephen Merchant, Rebel Wilson and more. The production design of the film was tremendous, and Waititi’s direction deserves special notice — many of his directorial choices add to the emotional punch of the film.

Jojo Rabbit may not be for everyone — seeing Adolf Hitler as a comical figure is both amusing and vaguely terrifying. And violence crops up with sudden surprise, which may shock some viewers. But, ultimately, it’s definitely worth watching — one of my favorite films from 2019!

[Special Note: The concept of Adolf Hitler as Jojo’s imaginary friend does NOT appear in the novel! This was something Waititi developed exclusively for his film adaptation. But it is one of the more intriguing and unique elements of this film!]

[Also available: The novel Caging Skies, which this film is adapted from.]

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official Jojo Rabbit web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library – Public Services

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!