Two Recent WWII books: The War I Finally Won and Salt to the Sea

Not that anyone is looking for more World War II books to read, but if they were, these two are definitely topping my list right now.

The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

I loved The War That Saved My Life so much that I immediately put the sequel on hold (and if you know anything about me and my track record with sequels/series, then you'll know what high praise this is). I've heard some readers say they liked this one better than the first one, but if I was forced to choose, I think I'd put my vote with the first one.

That isn't to say there was anything wrong with this one. Just, to me, it seemed like the story kind of stalled out a bit. It still has most of the same characters: Ada, Jamie, Susan, Lady Thornton, and Maggie, with the addition of Ruth (a young Jewish woman who has come to study math with Susan). In many ways, Ada's story has come full circle as demonstrated in this scene where she is riding Maggie's brother's horse, Oben: "I kicked again. I whooped. His speed increased until his stride began to feel as smooth as rushing wind, as effortless as flowing water. I moved with him, effortlessly. On the day I was evacuated, I'd looked out the window of our train and seen a girl galloping a pony, racing the train. Now I was that girl, galloping, laughing, my head thrown back, the wind tugging my hair. I'd become the person I'd longed to be."

But "becoming the person she'd longed to be" came with a price, which was that Ada was gripped with an intense need to control everything and keep anything bad out of her life--a task that is impossible at the best of times, let alone during a war.

She was also confronted with the question of, "If I've already become who I want to be [the girl riding the horse], what comes next?"

It's those two things (Ada's internal anxieties and her hopes for the future) that really drive the plot of this book. But even though big things happened (the Thorntons experienced a tragedy, Susan became very ill, Ada helped warn the village about a bombing), the pacing itself felt slow. To be fair, it wasn't any slower than the first book, but I think the difference was that in the first one, I was getting to know the characters at the same time, but here I already knew the characters really well, so the quiet moments dragged.

That said, I think it's partly the slow pace that makes Ada's growth seem so authentic. Her problems are not solved overnight. She has opportunities where she gets the best of her demons and other times when they get the best of her, but her overall motion is upward and forward. This quote from the end might sum it up best:

"I'd known the right thing to do, and I'd done it. I'd helped take care of Lady Thornton the way she'd helped take care of me. I'd stood in the steeple while bombs and even an airplane had fallen past me out of the sky. I'd felt afraid but I hadn't come undone. My foot would never be all the way right, but I could walk and climb and run. My feelings might never be all the way right either but they were healed enough.

There were many things I liked about this book--it was definitely a worthy and satisfying sequel (and there is even a sweet moment of closure for Susan at the very end). But I guess what I'm trying to say is that it maybe matched the first one a little too well in tone and pacing and drama, so it didn't have quite the same impact on me.

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

This book is evidence to my suspicion that no matter how many books are written about World War II, we will never run out of new material for another one. More than anything, I think that attests to the sad reality of how vast and all-encompassing that war really was.

This story centers around four characters: Emilia (a young Polish girl) Florian (a secretive Prussian), Joana (a Lithuanian nurse), and Alfred (a German private). As the war neared its end, thousands of Eastern Europeans fled before the Russians. These four characters boarded the infamous Wilhelm Gustloff for a short voyage across the Baltic Sea.

Infamous, except that I'd never heard of it before hearing about this book. If that's you too, then here are a few facts: the Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed in the Baltic Sea on January 30, 1945. It was carrying over 10,000 people, nearly 9,400 of whom perished in the frigid waters (and an unbelievable 5,000 of those losses were children). To give you some comparison, the Titanic lost 1,600 lives and the Lusitania lost 1,200. The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff dwarfed these other tragedies in every way, but for some reason, it has not been given the same amount of attention.

Set against this horrific backdrop, the stories of these four people were fascinating and heartbreaking. I listened to this book, and the audio used four different narrators, which made it easy to differentiate between the characters right from the beginning. As is so often the case with stories told from multiple points of view, this one was rich and multi-layered as I witnessed the same event from different perspectives and pieced together all of the details.

The writing is exquisite. Even simple sentences like this one, "She held her breath in one hand and her suitcase in the other," vividly meshed together the physical and emotional details. I also loved this one, which gave a stark image of the effect of the war: "War had bled color from everything, leaving nothing but a storm of gray."

In the midst of this terrible tragedy, the writing had a way of bringing in little forgotten details that just made my heart twist. For example, as Emilia is traveling through the woods, she often sings a little nursery rhyme from her childhood: "All the little duckies with their heads in the water, heads in the water . . . " Later, as she looks over the water at the destruction all around her, the nursery rhyme, once innocent, comes back unbidden with frightening accuracy, only it is no longer referring to ducks.

Two characters deserve special mention: the shoe poet because I loved him so much and Alfred because he was so unbelievably awful.

The shoe poet, as everyone referred to him, might have been my very favorite. He was a man without guile who had a keen sense of observation and shared his wisdom through shoe metaphors (hence, the nickname). He was especially kind to the wandering boy, a young child who had come unmoored from his family. I loved their trusting and loving relationship in the midst of so much despair.

Then there was Alfred who was an egotistic narcissist but also a bumbling idiot (depending on the point of view at the time). I loved the other three main characters so much and felt a connection with each one. But even in his pathetic wretchedness, I couldn't drum up even the least bit of sympathy for Alfred. I had to wonder if this was what the author intended or if I was at least supposed to feel somewhat sorry for Alfred or if she purposely created an unlikeable character because she knew we would need someone to hate.

I'm always on the lookout for the title of the book to be embedded in the story somewhere. It usually sheds some light as to why the author chose it for the title and makes it more poignant. In this case, the title came from Joana as she drifted in the middle of the sea: "I wanted my mother. My mother loved Lithuania. She loved her family. The war had torn every last love from her life. Would she have to learn the grotesque details of our suffering? Would news make it to my hometown . . . ,  to the dark bunker in the woods where my father and brother were thought to be hiding? Joana Vilcus. Your daughter. Your sister. She is salt to the sea."

I'm grateful that I have yet another book to add to my list of worthwhile and appropriate young adult novels. Because even though the subject matter is dark and heavy, the actual content was quite clean and sensitive. I'll leave you with this final bit of wisdom from Emilia, which highlights the resiliency of the human spirit and that even in the darkest moments, we can find the good: "Nature. That was something the war couldn't take from me either. The Nazis couldn't stop the wind and the snow. The Russians couldn't take the sun or the stars."

Review x 2: The War That Saved My Life and Betsy and Joe

Guess what? The following books were both ones I picked on my own, for pure pleasure, with no expectations or strings attached. It felt so good, and I enjoyed both of them immensely.

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
This book rekindled my love for middle grade novels. It was just so good, and I immediately put the sequel on hold, which is saying something since I'm not usually one to want to read the next book so quickly after the first. But I just really want more of Ada and Susan.

I also thought I was kind of tired of World War II books, but apparently I'm not. Ada's story begins just as Great Britain is on the cusp of joining the war against Germany. Having been confined to a one-room apartment her entire life, it is a beginning, both literally and figuratively, for Ada when her mam decides to send her little brother, Jamie, away to the country with the other school children to avoid the bombs that London is anticipating. Ada decides to leave with him. She doesn't ask permission; she just goes.

For years, Ada's mother has told her that she is worthless, disgusting, and embarrassing because she was born with a club foot. She doesn't deserve to be seen or educated. The cupboard under the sink is the place for her. For a brief few hours, as the train takes them far away from London, Ada puts that behind her as she exhilarates in her freedom. But it all comes rushing back when she and Jamie, grubby and unpleasant and her with a bleeding, throbbing foot, are not chosen by a single adult, and the teacher has to call up and force Ms. Susan Smith to take them.

The character development in this book is phenomenal. Ada's feelings are so complicated. She quickly falls in love with Susan's pony, Butter, and learns to ride him on her own. She makes friends with Lady Thornton's daughter, Maggie, and their stable hand, Fred. But her relationship with Susan is fraught with all of the feelings. She knows Susan didn't want them, and so any overtures of compassion and love from Susan are rejected. She reminds herself often that this is a temporary situation, and she won't let herself get used to Susan's attention. She has horrible flashbacks where all of the details of her previous life in London overwhelm her and make her frantic for escape. She is desperate for her mother's approval and constantly thinks, Maybe if she sees me doing [fill in the blank], then she will love me.

But slowly, her wounds heal, and she becomes capable, strong, and healthy. For Susan's part, having the children in her home begins to heal her of her own deep grief. Susan is wise and forward-thinking and reacts to the children's anger and rejection in a way that is both insightful and commendable. Ada has a complete meltdown on Christmas Eve, triggered by a gift from Susan--a beautiful green velvet dress. Instead of going to the Christmas Eve services at the church as they had planned, Susan wraps Ada up tight in a blanket and holds her until she is finally exhausted from her crying. The next morning, they go down for presents, but Jamie is sure Ada won't get anything because she was "bad" the night before. Susan says, "Not bad. Not bad, Ada. Sad, angry, frightened. Not bad." But Ada thinks, "Sad, angry frightened were bad. It was not okay to be any of those." The way that Susan was able to define Ada's outburst as actual feelings instead of making a blanket diagnosis was beautiful and touching.

This book won a Newbery Honor in 2016, and so I feel like I'm a little late getting to the party. But I'm here now, and this is going on my list of must-recommend reads.

Betsy and Joe by Maud Hart Lovelace
If pressed to choose a favorite Betsy-Tacy book, I think I would have to pick Betsy and Joe. Rereading it did nothing to change my opinion. I love this book so much.

For one thing, it has all the best scenes with Joe. You spend all of the high school books hoping for more of Joe, and you're finally rewarded in this, their senior year. By this point, he is set on Betsy and doesn't try to hide it. For her part, Betsy is thrilled. She spent the whole year previous wishing for Joe's attentions, and now she has them. Only problem is, Tony, who has always been like a brother to Betsy, now cares about her in a new way. Betsy is so happy to have Tony staying close to home and not jumping freight trains to hang out with older boys that she can't tell him she doesn't care for him in that way. But having two beaus is exhausting and anxiety laden, and eventually, Joe's pride can't handle it anymore: Either she goes with him exclusively or she doesn't. And without giving Betsy a chance to explain, he sticks out his chin in that defiant way of his and leaves her to Tony, which breaks her heart.

This series is closely tied to Maud Hart Lovelace's own life, and it makes me happy to think that all of the high school drama and festivities (the essay cup, the senior picnic, the dances), as well as the lovely home life (singing around the piano, sandwiches on Sunday, letters from Julia) were based on truth. (The one thing that isn't true? Maud and her future husband, Delos, didn't even know each other in high school, so even though Joe's character is based on Delos, their friendship with one another during that time is fictionalized.)

When Joe finally swallows his pride and Betsy finally realizes that she only wants Joe, it is in his aunt and uncle's general store in a tiny rural town. (Coincidentally, it was in this same general store that Betsy first met Joe nearly four years before.) Betsy has spent the week with friends, and her hair is straight and plaited instead of curled and puffed. Joe says, "Do you know, I like your hair straight," and Betsy thinks "if he had looked through all the poetry books in the world, he couldn't have found a better compliment." I could read this scene over and over again. I love it so much.

My other favorite scene is when Betsy is perfectly miserable on Christmas Eve because things have just fallen apart with Joe, but she chooses to put on a happy face and put her whole heart into all of the family traditions. In reflecting on the day, she says, "'It's a wonder I braced up for Christmas Eve. I'm glad I did.' She knew she had helped the family, and as a matter of fact, she had been happy. That, she realized, was because she had stopped thinking about herself." I think it's this one scene that makes the reader see how far Betsy's character has come over her four years of high school. She is willing to set aside her own personal misery for the good of the family, and that's admirable.

I don't know if I'll continue reading the series. To be honest, I kind of like to keep Betsy and Joe at this magical age where they're right on the brink of adulthood and madly in love with each other. The next two books lose a little bit of that because they have to grow up. But I might read Carney's House Party, one of the companion books to the Betsy-Tacy series, which I never read when I was younger.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

So far, 2017 is not the year of the audiobook for me. This is the only book I've listened to, and it took me nearly two months to finish. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I make it through six audiobooks this year, which is a far cry from the years where at least half of my reading was done by listening. I blame podcasts, knitting vlogs, and my noisy children for the drop in numbers.

All that said, even though it took me an agonizingly long time to listen to, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There have been a bunch of WWII bestsellers lately; besides this one, I've also read All the Light We Cannot See and The Nightingale, but I have to say, I liked this one best: the setting, the plot, the characters, and the treatment of hard subject matter were all just really well done.

The book jacket claims that this is a "novel about three lives entangled during World War II," but I would argue that it's really about just two: Mary North and Alistair Heath. I think the third character the summary refers to is Tom Shaw, who is Mary's boyfriend and Alistair's best friend, but although he certainly plays a critical role in both of their lives, the story is never really told from his perspective, whereas it travels back and forth between Mary and Alistair. If Tom is noted as a main character, I feel like you also have to mention Hilda (Mary's best friend) and Zachary (a young student whom Mary tutors).

But really, I'm getting ahead of myself since I haven't actually told you anything about anyone.

The story opens with this line (which I quite like): "War was declared at eleven-fifteen and Mary North signed up at noon." Mary lives in London and comes from a wealthy family. But I love that opening sentence because I think it sums up Mary so perfectly: she's feisty; she doesn't think twice when it comes to making a decision; she's willing to work hard and fulfill her duty; and she doesn't care much about propriety or social standards.

Mary is hoping she'll be assigned as a liaison, or possibly even a spy, but instead she gets sent to a school. It's not quite as glamorous as she was hoping for, but she discovers that she really enjoys teaching children. However, just a few days into her responsibilities, the children are evacuated to the countryside, and the headmistress dismisses Mary from her post: "I like you, Mary. Enough to tell you that you will never be any good as a teacher. Find something more suited to your many gifts." And so, just like that, Mary has nothing to do, and she's rather embarrassed about it.

Meanwhile, on the other side of London, Tom Shaw and Alistair Heath are good friends and flatmates. With everyone enlisting, there aren't many young men left in London, so Tom, a teacher, has recently been put in charge of a school district (most of the children have been evacuated, but there are a few left--mostly those who, for one reason or another, are unwanted by families in the country). It's to Tom that Mary goes for help finding a new position, and he eventually finds one for her, teaching a small class of outcasts and misfits. Alistair, on the other hand, is not content to stay in London, just waiting to be drafted, and enlists almost immediately. Within weeks, even before he's seen any real fighting, he's seen enough to know this war will change him forever.

Mary and Tom begin dating very soon after meeting each other for the first time, but then, she meets Alistair on his first leave back to London, and, even though he was actually set up with her best friend, Hilda, she begins secretly writing him.

One thing that almost all of my friends have mentioned after reading this book is the smart and witty dialogue, and that was definitely one of my favorite parts as well. Between the daily bombings in London and the horrible assault on Malta (where Alistair is stationed), the devastation and heartache in this story is tremendous. Lives are stamped out so quickly and with so little fanfare, it sets you reeling trying to grasp it and keep track of it all. But then there's the dialogue, which, in stark contrast to the awful scenes, is light and often quite amusing. These conversations don't downplay the grave situations, but they do provide the right kind of balance to help the characters (and the reader) survive.

The title of the book was actually one of my favorite parts, and I don't often say that, mostly because it's usually pretty obvious why a book bears a certain title. But in this case, I didn't really understand the title until I was about halfway through the book, and then things started clicking, and I just thought, Oh my goodness, how beautifully tragic.

At one point, Mary herself uses the line. She writes, "I was brought up to believe that everyone brave is forgiven, but in wartime, courage is cheap and clemency out of season," meaning, everyone has to be brave so showing mercy doesn't even matter.

And yet, it does.

As the book progressed, and the costly and fatal mistakes began to pile up, I really saw the truth in the sentiment, "Everyone brave is forgiven." In spite of what Mary said, perhaps the need for bravery and accompanying forgiveness is more apparent during war than any other time. Decisions have to be made, and usually those decisions involve death on one side or the other, making the decisions impossibly impossible.

I wanted to list a few of those devastating decisions from this book, for my own memory, with the warning that spoilers will follow, so please stop reading now if you haven't read the book.

(I'm not kidding--major spoilers ahead.)

Here are just a few of the instances where some of the characters had to overcome the intense guilt brought on by their decisions and forgive themselves, all while hoping others would show the same mercy: 

• Zachary leaves the school basement in the middle of a bombing raid (all of the parents are in attendance because the children are performing the school Christmas play). Mary sends Tom after him, and then she soon follows. A bomb hits the school, killing everyone inside. Tom, on the outside, is hit by flying debris and is also killed instantly. Mary and Zachary are the only survivors.
• Alistair leaves the comfort and warmth of a truck to help a fellow army buddy walk back to camp. On the way, his friend steps on an unexploded artillery shell and is killed mid-sentence.
• While helping on an ambulance crew, Mary nearly dies when her leg becomes trapped by a fallen beam and pins her down while the water level in a basement steadily rises. She's given morphine to ease the pain while she heals but becomes addicted to it and makes some poor choices because of it.
• Alistair is bitten on his hand by a dying German and ends up losing his arm.
• Alistair restores a painting for a local church. He takes great pride in it and wants to deliver it before he returns to London, so he convinces his friend, Briggs, to drive him to the church. They have no other reason to be out (and Alistair has to lie and say they're delivering maps to some other camps in order to have the request approved), but during the drive, a host of shells fall on them, one of which kills Briggs.
• Alistair's good friend, and commanding officer, Major Simonson, pulls a few (unapproved) strings in order to bump Alistair ahead of some of the other soldiers waiting for a flight home.

With each of these situations, I could see the goodness and courage twisted up among the final consequences. Perhaps Alistair said it best when he receives a letter from Mary's friend, Hilda, informing him (quite bitterly) about Mary's addiction to morphine. She paints Mary in a very unfavorable light, and Simonson says, "If half of what she says is true then you are best off without Mary, and this Hilda has done well to warn you." But Alistair replies, "I should like to know Mary's side of the story."

And ultimately, that's what this book is: it's this side of the story and then that side of the story, and looking at all these different sides reveals the great complexity of human choices. As much as we like to think that decisions are clear-cut and black and white, many times they're not at all. We do the best we can with the information we have. We reap the consequences, as awful as they might be. We give our best and hope that it's enough.

And it is. Because, in the end, everyone brave is forgiven.

Content note: Mild language (I don't remember any f-words, but there might have been one); one pre-marital sexual scene (not descriptive); the usual violence associated with war.

The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel

If anyone wants to know what I listened to over the summer, well, here it is. One book. It's pitiful. And embarrassing. I started it in June and finally finished it a couple of weeks ago.

Some of you are probably thinking, That bad, huh? I guess I can skip that one. But wait! Don't judge too quickly. This had absolutely nothing to do with the book itself. It could have been the most exciting, nail-biting thriller, and it still would have taken me that long because, it turns out, listening and summer just don't go together for me. Or at least, they didn't this summer. Having my four kids around all day meant that there was rarely a quiet time to listen. And when I'm listening to a book, I do require quiet. I hate missing important information, and it's so frustrating to start it up, get back into it, only to have to pause it thirty seconds later (and then back it up fifteen seconds) because someone started talking to me. So, usually, I just didn't even try. And when you're only listening to about an hour per week, a 14-hour book takes a long time.

The reason I picked up this book in the first place was because of our Europe trip. I wanted to read something that would feature some of the places we were going to visit. My goal was to have it done before we went on the trip, but by the time we left, I was only halfway through (see above comment on summer and listening). As it turned out though, I think this may have been the perfect way to read it. Since I had read half of it, it really did make our trip more meaningful. But when we came home and I finished it, it made the book more meaningful. The cities and places had become real to me, and I felt so connected with certain parts of the story. I'll share some specific examples in a minute.

But first, a little about the Monuments Men themselves. In 1944, a special art division was created in the Allied army to locate and recover all of the art that had been damaged, looted, or stolen by the Germans during the last eight or nine years (interestingly, there had never been such a group created before, nor has there been one since). Headed by George Stout, the division was manned by only a handful of men and women with extremely limited supplies and resources. Here's a small taste of what they were up against:

"The museum directors didn't understand the military. The military still wasn't confident this was a good idea. The Monuments Men were only advisors. They couldn't force any officer of any rank to act. They were allowed freedom of movement, but they would have no vehicles, no offices, no support staff, and no backup plan. The army had given them a boat but not the motor. The men in the field, George Stout could already see, were going to have to row, and he had a strong suspicion they would be rowing against the tide. But once you're on the water, he knew, a schooner might just pass. Just get us over there, Stout thought, still not convinced the operation wasn't about to collapse. Just give us a chance."

But in spite of this lack of support and almost no outside direction, the Monuments Men were able to recover the largest art depositories during the war at Althaussee (Hitler's personal collection), the Merkers mine, and Neuschwanstein castle. The amount of art they found was staggering: thousands upon thousands of pieces, from small paintings that belonged in personal collections to huge treasures, like the Ghent altarpiece. I'm not exaggerating when I say that finding these depositories and then transporting everything back to its rightful owners was like something straight out of a crime novel.

On the third day of our trip, on our way to Paris, we stopped off in Bruges, Belgium. It was the most picturesque little village, cut through by shimmery canals and stone bridges and watched over by an imposing Medieval spire. We went on a boat ride, ate some Belgian waffles, and were about to get in the car and be on our way when we realized that Michelangelo's sculpture of the Madonna and Child was displayed in The Church of Our Lady, not more than a few blocks away from where we were then standing.

The Bruges Madonna has an incredible history. It was sandwiched between a couple of mattresses  and smuggled out of Belgium in 1944 by the Germans. Several months later, monuments men Robert Posy and Lincoln Kirstein found it hundreds of feet below ground at Althaussee. When we walked into the quiet church and saw it safely encased in glass, I'd read the first half of the story, but I hadn't gotten to the second half. It was one of those things where, when you see it, you know you are looking at a masterpiece. No one has to tell you. When we got back home and I finally got to hear the rest of the story about how it made it back to its home in The Church of Our Lady, I could picture Mary's tranquil face and the soft drapery of her garment. The story had come to life for me because I'd been in the same room as that priceless sculpture.

When I was recapping the highlights from our trip, I neglected to mention one of the places we visited in Germany because, for me, it was not a highlight.  It was the Buchenwald concentration camp. Even seventy years later, with the inmates replaced by tourists and all of the barracks gone, it was a dark and dismal place. I felt the weight of it, heavy upon me, as we walked over the grounds and through the buildings. The sadness and misery and heartache of so many thousands still pervades every corner of that place. At the time, it hurt so much to be there that I wished we hadn't gone.

But then, a few weeks later, I was so surprised when I was listening to this book and Robert Posy visited Buchenwald the day after it was liberated. Even though I did not see the horrors he witnessed as he walked through the camp (can you even imagine...), since I had been there, I had the tiniest bit of empathy for what he must have been feeling. And without that experience, I would have passed over that section without much thought. In fact, when I told Mike that Buchenwald was in The Monuments Men, he was incredulous. He had read the book a couple of years ago, but not having that stark and vivid memory in his brain yet, the name Buchenwald didn't actually mean much. For the first time since we'd returned home, I'd found a reason to be grateful we'd gone there (although I felt a kinship with two of the monuments men, Lincoln Kerstein and Walter Hancock, who refused to go in because they didn't want the things they were sure to see there to haunt them for the rest of their lives).

Even places that I hadn't actually seen felt more real simply because I'd seen places like them or been near to them. Now that we're home, there are really only two places I deeply regret not having enough time to see: Mont Saint Michel (an abbey located on an island near Normandy, France--one of the tasks of the monuments men was to restore historic buildings and landmarks, as well as art) and Neuschwanstein castle (completed in 1886 and the hiding place of one of the largest art depositories during the war). I think I regret these oversights so much because we were so close to seeing both of them. They were both on our list of places we wanted to go, but they were both out of the way enough that we just didn't have time for them. If we ever go back, they will be top priorities.

But that's enough about our trip. The point is that, for me, this book did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was to give added meaning and significance to the places we saw on our trip.

One thing I hadn't expected from this book was just how much it deepened my appreciation for art. I would say that up until I read this book, my feelings toward art were, in general, pretty lukewarm. I would look at a famous piece of art and think, What is so great about this? Why does anyone care?

But three things helped change my mind this summer. First, I checked out the book, Art Fraud Detective for Aaron and Maxwell and helped them work through it. Second, Mike and I finished watching the last couple seasons of White Collar. And finally, I listened to this book. And even though I won't say that I understand, or even like, classical or contemporary art any more than I did, I definitely appreciate it more and have a desire to learn more about it. So that's a step in a new direction.

Many of you are probably aware that a film based on the experiences of the Monuments Men was released in 2014. Since I hadn't finished the book by the time we left on our trip, Mike and I decided to watch the movie on the flight over. After we were about forty minutes into it, we turned to each other and asked, "Do you want to finish this?" and neither of us did. It was such a disappointment. All of the names of the key players had been changed, and everything had been dramatized in a way that was not true to the real story. I couldn't help thinking, This story had it all! Excitement, danger, drama, heroism. Why on earth would they have changed it? Feel free to disagree with me, but the book (and the real story) is far superior to what Hollywood tried to do with it.

This review has gone on way too long (but, you see, I've been saving up my thoughts on it all summer!), so I'll wrap it up with one of my favorite stories that really captures the type of people these monuments men were: hardworking, honest, humble, and just so good.

The mine at Merkers was more than just an art depository: it was a literal Nazi treasure trove. There were rooms completely filled with gold bars and jewels and money. Robert Posy was one of the men on the job, and he said,

"At the gold mine, they filled my helmet with twenty dollar American gold pieces and said I could have it," he wrote Alice on April 20th, a few days after emerging from the mine. "I couldn't lift it off the ground. It contained thirty-five thousand dollars, so we poured it back in the sacks and left it. I seem to have absolutely no greed for money, for I felt no thrill at seeing so much of the stuff. Your poem means more to me."

These men (and women) weren't hoping to get rich from the runoff of treasures. Most of them weren't even tempted by it. All of their work and dedication was because they loved their country, they had a deep appreciation for art, and they valued the impact art has on a country's culture and history. 

This is another book I wouldn't mind having in my home when my boys are teenagers. The writing isn't quite as fast-paced or captivating as some of the other similar books I've already added (The Boys in the Boat, Endurance, etc.), but the story is amazing, and you just can't beat a real-life treasure hunt like this one. You just can't.

Thoughts on this book? The movie? Or just the melding of past and present in general?

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

When I had The Nightingale checked out from the library the first time, I didn't put a high enough priority on it in my reading queue, and so I was only on page 96 when it had to go back to the library (I know this because I made a note of it so I'd know where to pick it back up when I got it back). Being a very popular book, I had to wait through another long list of people before it was finally my turn again. And you better believe that when I had it in my hands again, I made a point of finishing it.

Obviously I found the first ninety-six pages interesting enough that I was willing to return to it after a month-long break, in part because a couple of my friends knew I was reading it and asked how I liked it and I wanted to be able to talk to them about it, but it wasn't completely gripping. Once I finally got it back though, I found the final three hundred pages much more engrossing than the first hundred and flew through the rest of it.

I wouldn't necessarily say I came away feeling satisfied, but it was one of those books I enjoyed being in the middle of (apparently, since I was technically reading it for two months).

The story centers around two French sisters, Vianne and Isabelle. Although most of the story takes place during World War II, the reader gets some back story (mainly about their strained relationship after their mother dies and their father sends them away) and some glimpses into the future in 1995 when one of the sisters (it's not clear at first which one) is confronted with the past she's tried so hard to forget.

Vianne and Isabelle were never close--not in age (there's a gap of about ten years), temperament, or ability. When their father basically stopped being a father, Vianne met Antoine, whom she later married, and Isabelle got passed around from boarding school to boarding school, after getting kicked out of each one. When they hear the first rumblings of war, Vianne's first reaction is to pull her husband and daughter close and never let them go whereas Isabelle wants to join the resistance and let Germany know that they can't have France without a fight.

The war changes both of them. Vianne is forced to billet a German officer and suffers extreme deprivation as the war gradually strips the country of all its resources. Turns out, she's much tougher than she realized. Isabelle, meanwhile, joins an underground group distributing anti-Germany propaganda and eventually earns the nickname "Nightingale" as she smuggles downed Ally airmen over to Spain where they can rejoin their armies. She is extremely brave but also vulnerable.

At one point, Vianne visits Mother Superior at the convent because she is so worked up with guilt over a decision she made that negatively impacted one of her dearest friends. I love the advice Mother Superior gives her: "Don't think about who they are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you."

This idea of choosing your sacrifices definitely becomes a theme throughout the book. As you can imagine with WWII as the backdrop, there are some (actually, a lot of) hard, heavy moments. Over and over again, Vianne and Isabelle make decisions that risk their own safety and that of their loved ones. The options they're given are usually impossible choices: they have to risk one thing to protect something else which in turn puts something else at risk. These choices are completely overwhelming, and I kept wondering what I would do in their place; the very thought made me sick.

Unfortunately, as with many WWII books, this one left me feeling weary and depressed. The story gets progressively darker, and by the end, I couldn't handle anymore. There isn't a lot of actual warfare, but the way the German officers took advantage of the French people and the unwarranted violence and arrests and the horrendous treatment of Jews and the sickening torture meted out to prisoners of war was plenty difficult to read without going onto a single battlefield. When I have enough space between books like this one, I forget the details of WWII and how many people were senselessly killed. So then when I pick one up again, it's like I'm learning about it for the first time all over again, and I honestly can't believe that these kind of atrocities happened on such a wide scale and not very many decades ago.

I have such conflicted feelings about this particular story. I loved the perspective of both sisters and seeing how they served their country in very different, but equally courageous, ways. I thought the love story between Isabelle and Gaëtan was sweet but also very dramatic, especially at the end. I also thought there were a few too many coincidences at the very end when the story moves back to 1995. Too many characters miraculously showed up, and it felt a little unrealistic.

Shortly after I finished this book, I watched the movie Life is Beautiful for the first time. It's one of Mike's very favorite movies, but I kept resisting because I knew it would be too sad. He kept assuring me, "No, no, it's inspiring. There will be some sad parts but overall, it's really uplifting." So I watched it and by the end, my tears were flowing without restraint (that little boy with those bright eyes!), and I don't think I would have used the word "uplifted" at all. This book had nothing in common with that movie except that they're both heartbreaking, and that's what you have to expect from a WWII story. That war touched millions of lives with sadness.

Content note: Violence, immorality, and rape are all a part of this story. It could have been a lot more graphic, but it's still there and very disturbing. There's also a little bit of language.

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

When I was growing up, my mom had her favorite "Did I ever tell you about . . . " stories. One of these was from when she was  a student at the University of Nebraska. My mom is very petite and when she was a college student, she weighed a mere 100 pounds. Besides being a gymnastics teacher who was mistaken as one of the children one time (another favorite story of hers), her slight build also made her the perfect candidate for the coxswain of the school's rowing team. To this day, I don't know how long she was on the team or how many races she was in or even any of the names of the other rowers. I just know that it's something she took a certain amount of pride in.

My dad was the first one to read this book, and you can probably already tell from the title and the cover, this is a story about rowing. Suddenly, his interest in my mom's college experience escalated. He began following her around the house, asking questions like, "As the coxswain, did you use a megaphone? Did you ask for an increased stroke count? Did you ever say, 'Give me ten big ones'?"

My mom began to get a little annoyed. At that point, she had not read the book (although she has now), and I think she felt a little called out--her favorite story exposed! "No!" she'd reply. "Stop following me around! The University of Nebraska had a very small rowing program. We were not out to win any Olympic medals. I was usually so busy steering, I didn't have time for giving commands."

But then she read the book. And the pride returned. Because even though Nebraska can't boast a competitive rowing program, she was the coxswain. And that's kind of a big deal, no matter the size or ability of the rowing program.

The Boys in the Boat is the true story of nine young men from The University of Washington who went to the Berlin Olympics in 1936, just as the world was on the cusp of the second world war. For the most part, they were boys from working class families. At the time, Washington felt far removed from the eastern United States where rowing was an esteemed and time-honored sport. But with the likes of Al Ulbrickson (Washington's coach), Tom Bolles (Washington's freshman coach), and Ky Ebright (California's coach and Washington's biggest rival), the western rowing teams became a force to be reckoned with.

The story mainly follows Joe Rantz, who sat in the seventh seat of the Olympic boat. His childhood was not ideal. His mother died when he was only four years old, and he found himself shipped off to various relatives (including his older brother who had already graduated from college and was married). Eventually, his father remarried (to his son's wife's twin sister, believe it or not), and Joe moved back in with them. But Thula did not get along well with Joe (or really anyone, for that matter). The Rantz' life was hard: they lived in tiny cabins in rural towns and struggled to make ends meet. It was not the life that Thula, an accomplished violinist, had envisioned for herself, and she took out all of her frustrations on Joe.

When he was just fifteen years old, Joe's father and Thula packed up once again, but this time they did not take Joe with them. Thula couldn't stand to be around him, and so she basically gave Joe's dad an ultimatum: her or him. He chose her (along with their four children), and Joe was abandoned and left on his own. His dad's parting words of advice were, "Look, Son, if there's one thing I've figured out about life, it's that if you want to be happy, you have to learn how to be happy on your own" (advice that, apparently, he himself did not follow since he was willing to let Thula dictate what he could or could not do).

This was during the Depression when there really weren't jobs readily available, even for an industrious boy like Joe. He struggled just to have enough food to eat, and so it's pretty remarkable that just a few years later, he found himself at the University of Washington. He wanted a spot on the freshman rowing team, not because he had a particular affinity for rowing (he'd never even done it before), but because he wanted the guaranteed part-time job that would come with it. But once he was on the team, he held onto it for all that he was worth. He was determined to make it to the Olympics.

I am not really much of a sports person, and I knew very little about rowing before reading this book (in spite of my mom's tales from Nebraska's rowing team). But I love the Olympics, and I love a good underdog story, and so after just the first couple of chapters, I was gripped with an intense interest in rowing. (Did you know that "physiologists . . . have calculated that rowing a 2000-meter race, the Olympic standard, takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back to back. And it exacts that toll in about six minutes"?)

I learned new vocabulary (for example, "catching a crab" doesn't really mean your oar caught a crab--just that it hit the water wrong), and I listened to the rundown of every race with bated breath. If anything, the credit for my sudden devotion to rowing probably goes to Daniel James Brown who has the remarkable ability of being able to tell a true story like it's fiction without actually fictionalizing any part of it.

I couldn't believe how intense and suspenseful it was, even while knowing right from the beginning what the final outcome would be. As I was listening to the final Olympic race with full knowledge that they would come out on top, I still questioned myself. The details were so incredible, the odds against them so seemingly insurmountable, that I found myself thinking, Did I misunderstand? Did I miss something? I thought they were going to win! Because as they're in the middle of the race, rowing with all their might, it seems absolutely impossible that they could possibly end up winning.

I'll refrain from sharing the details since I feel like, even knowing that they win, it would spoil it to tell you how it all happens, but I was truly amazed (and maybe even got a little teary-eyed).

Even though the narration follows Joe Rantz (which provides some cohesion to the story as a whole), Brown fills in the gaps with all sorts of other interesting details: historical information (including some about the impending war), little glimpses of small-town life in rural America, and brief life sketches on the rest of the cast in this incredible story.

One of the people you get to know is George Yeoman Pocock, Washington's resident boatbuilder. As a young man, he immigrated to the United States from England and began to build boats for a living (it's what his family was trained to do). By the time Joe Rantz came onto campus, Pocock was building all the boats for the western teams and for some of the eastern ones, too. He was a master craftsman.

Quiet but observant, Pocock could give any of the famous fictional mentors a run for their money. He watches from the sidelines while polishing a hull here or shaving off a piece of wood there. At the critical moment, just as Joe is about to lose his chance of being on the Olympic team, Pocock takes him into his workshop and tells him to "think of a well-rowed race as a symphony, and himself as just one player in the orchestra." He says, "Joe, when you really start trusting those other boys, you will feel a power at work within you that is far beyond anything you've ever imagined. Sometimes, you will feel as if you have rowed right off the planet and are rowing among the stars."

That advice leads to my favorite scene in the book. For weeks, the coach, Al Ulbrickson, has been fiddling with the teams--swapping out a boy, changing seat assignments, trying to find that magic combination that will make the boat fly. Joe has just about given up hope of being on the Olympic team when Ulbrickson moves him from the third boat to the second boat (which ends up being the one selected for the Olympic team). At the time Ulbrickson doesn't realize it, but it's the final change he'll have to make. I loved the moment when Joe got into the boat and sat down in the seventh seat. The way Brown described it, it was as if Joe was the missing link and all the pieces finally clicked into place:

"From the moment he stepped into the shell that afternoon, [Joe] felt at home. He liked these boys. He didn't know Gordy Adam and Don Hume well, but both made a point of welcoming him aboard. His oldest, most reliable shell house friend, Roger Morris, sitting up front in the bow, gave him a wave and shouted the length of the boat, 'Hey, Joe, I see you finally found the right boat!' His buddies from Grand Coulee, Chuck Day and Johnny White, were sitting up near the front too. As he strapped his shoes to the footbaord and began to lace his feet into the shoes, Stub McMillin, his face alight, said, "OK, this boat is going to fly now, boys.' Shorty Hunt slapped him on the back and whispered, 'Got your back, Joe.'"

That paragraph perfectly describes the camaraderie these boys felt with each other, but the reason why it's my very favorite scene is because you get the sense that Joe has finally found his place in the world with people who understand him, respect him, and even love him. (And I think the rest of the story attests to this bond because all nine of the boys kept in contact with each other throughout their lives, even decades and decades after that Olympic race.) It was just a very sweet, very emotional moment for me.

This book's style reminded me a lot of Unbroken or Endurance. You might remember that when I read Endurance, I said I was going to buy it because I want my boys to have easy access to it during their teen years. This book is another one that I will buy for that same reason. It is such a phenomenal story told in such an engaging way. Those nine boys, and particularly Joe Rantz, are exactly the kind of role models I want for my own boys: hard working, dedicated, and loyal. They went after the impossible, and they achieved it.

Okay, and since we're on the subject of character and the kind of examples I want for my kids, I'm just going to give you one more glimpse at the kind of man Joe Rantz was. After he's been in school for about a year, Joe finds out that his father and stepmother have been living in a home not too far away from him. One afternoon, Joe and his girlfriend, Joyce, decide to pay them a visit. Thula is as prickly and cold-hearted as ever and tells him to "Make your own life, Joe. Stay out of ours."

As they drive away, Joyce is furious (I could go on and on about Joyce--if Joe is the role model for my kids, then Joyce is the role model for me. She is absolutely incredible). She can't believe the way Thula treated Joe, and she can't figure out why Joe just quietly takes it. In frustration, she cries, "I just don't understand why you don't get angry." And Joe quietly replies, "It takes energy to get angry. It eats you up inside. I can't waste my energy like that and expect to get ahead." If my boys can read that and take it heart, they'll be well on their way to becoming fine young men.

When we discussed this book at book club last month (one of my favorite discussions ever, by the way), it got a unanimous stamp of approval, but some people in the group said that it didn't quite meet their expectations (it is, after all, a book that has received a ton of praise in the last year) or that it dragged on endlessly in some parts. Although this was not my experience at all, I thought I'd mention it here with my own recommendation: I don't know if it would make a difference, but I listened to the audio, and it was brilliant. If there were slow parts, I honestly never noticed them. And the races! The races were especially exciting to listen to--almost like you were listening to the actual commentary over the radio. The actual book is still worth checking out because it includes some great photographs, but if you're a little worried about it dragging, I'd say give the audio a try.

And as far as it being too hyped up, all I can tell you is that my expectations were high (since my dad, mom, and husband had all read it before me and couldn't stop praising it), and those expectations were still blown through the roof. They were met and exceeded in every possible way.

I'm sure I've probably talked it up too much myself now, and you'll all be disappointed if you read it. But if you've read it, please tell me your experience with it. What did you like? What didn't you like?

Christmas From Heaven: The True Story of the Berlin Candy Bomber

One of my favorite moments from last Christmas was going to the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert with my dad. Those few hours together were a rare treat, and we both came away feeling like we'd been given a special gift. I wish I could think of a way to describe what it's like to sit in such a magnificent building and be encompassed by glorious music, all while experiencing it with someone you dearly love.

For both of us, the most magical part of the evening was when guest narrator, Tom Brokaw, shared the story of Hal Halvorsen, a pilot who helped with the relief effort to Berlin following WWII.

This year, that narration has been turned into a picture book. When I saw the cover to it, I was beside myself. It is rather remarkable what the combination of an inspiring true story and beautiful illustrations will do to me. I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy of the book from the publisher, and I eagerly checked the mail every day for two weeks in the hope that it had arrived.

My first time through it was with Aaron, and I could not keep my emotions down as I read him the story of how one small act transformed into something much bigger and impacted the lives of thousands of people . . .

When 27-year-old Hal Halvorsen began dropping flour and other supplies to the people of West Berlin, he was touched by the gratitude and optimism of the children in the face of such harsh circumstances. Following one landing, he wanted to give them something special, but he only had two sticks of gum. Afraid that he might cause a fight, he still went ahead and handed the measly two sticks to thirty children and watched in amazement as they tore the wrappers into thin strips and each took a turn sniffing the foreign and delicious smell.

That experience inspired Hal to ask some of his army buddies to donate the gum and chocolate from their rations to give to other children. They tied the treats to handkerchiefs, wiggled the wings of the plane as a signal, and let the treasures drop from the sky to the arms of the eagerly waiting children. Hal became known as the Candy Bomber, and before long, the operation caught the attention of many others, and donations began pouring in. The basic necessities had enabled survival, but the candy brought an even more needed hope.

This story is no less beautiful or inspiring as a picture book than it was as a large scale performance. The text, written by David T. Warner, is actually the same as what was so eloquently narrated by Tom Brokaw. It seems to work just as well for kids as it did for adults. It is factual but simple with plenty of interesting dialogue and asides.

The illustrations are wonderful. They are all done in muted, sepia tones, which lends an authentic feel to them. I especially like the depictions of Hal: with his ruddy cheeks and brilliant smile, it is easy to see why the children loved him so much, even before he started dropping candy.

But what I love even more than the illustrations are the real photographs that are scattered throughout. This really brought the story to life for Aaron. He could see what the actual planes looked like; he saw the real faces of children, some the same age as him; he looked at a photo of Hal with his arms full of parachutes. And he knew that this story wasn't made up. It really happened.

Included with this book is a DVD of this portion of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Concert. I watched it and was unprepared for the flood of memories that came back to me as I remembered what it was like to sit in that very hall and watch the parachutes float down from the ceiling and gasp when the curtain fell away to reveal the real 92-year-old Hal Halvorsen. I watched, and new tears streamed down my cheeks as the beauty and depth of the story again filled me with joy and hope.

I think another reason this story is so perfect is because it feels applicable. Hal's father always told him, "From little things come big things." Handing two sticks of gum through a barbed wire fence felt like a little thing. In fact, it was so little, Hal almost didn't do it. But that one small act grew and snowballed and ended up helping many, many children. This story is applicable not because I'm going to do the same things as Hal Halvorsen but because I can do small things too. I can give a present to the sweet crossing guard at Aaron's school or give a donation to the food bank or leave a surprise on someone's doorstep. I don't have to let the idea that my actions won't make a difference stop me from doing something.

I am so grateful to have this book as part of our Christmas collection. Every year, we will be able to take it out and be inspired anew by what Hal Halvorsen did. I really like this quote from the book: "Day by day, the parachutes brought peace and the candy renewed hope. The children made friends of their former enemies, and their parents' hearts were softened. The wounds of war began to heal." I think in a country so devastated by war, the physical necessities were obvious. But Hal realized there was something more he could do that would replenish life-saving hope. And he did it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

If you would like more information about this book or are interested in purchasing it, you can visit Deseret Book.

I was generously given a hardback copy of this book from the publisher, but all opinions are entirely my own.

Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Soon after it won a Newbery Honor in January, I checked out Bomb from the library. I packed it (along with a half dozen other books) on one of our infamous trips to Colorado (which, I would love to remind all of you, are now a thing of the past because Mike is DONE. I still can't get over it.).

While we were there, I pulled it out and showed it to my mom. Even though I hadn't read it yet, I had read enough reviews to know that it seemed like just the kind of book my family would like. My mom stole it from me and started to read it aloud to my dad and younger siblings. After the first chapter, they couldn't put it down.

I felt a bit smug (as I always do when someone likes a book I recommended . . . even if it is one I have no authority recommending), but then I didn't read it myself. I know! What is wrong with me? It wasn't that I didn't want to read it. Just, you know, millions of books, not enough time . . . Gah!

So, several months later, when my brother-in-law put me in charge of the family reunion book club, I immediately thought of this book. Mike has a large family (eight siblings, six in-laws, 21 grandkids . . . ), and this seemed like the perfect book for both men and women with an age range spanning almost 60 down to 9.

(Just to clarify, in case you're remembering that I already mentioned a family reunion book club, it was my family that read The BFG. Given the fact that many of them didn't like that book and had already read and loved Bomb, perhaps this would have been a better choice.)

I won't speak for the entire group (although I will say that almost everyone read it, and consequently, we were able to have a really great discussion), but I, for one, loved it. This is some amazingly good non-fiction.

It grabbed me from this very first sentence: "He had a few more minutes to destroy seventeen years of evidence." That's talking about Harry Gold, an American who became a spy/courier for the Soviets. And the 17 years of evidence? That's regarding the creation of the atomic bomb.

It's rather embarrassing how little I knew about the atomic bomb before reading this book. I can sum up the extent of my knowledge in a few sentences: two massive bombs (which somehow employed fission) were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the cities were destroyed; radiation poisoning followed; Los Alamos, New Mexico was involved in some way; Albert Einstein played a part, maybe?

In my mental WWII timeline, the atomic bomb always miraculously materialized right at the end, never making any sort of appearance before 1945. I guess if I'd thought about it, I would have known that you couldn't possibly just snap your fingers and have an atomic bomb. But that's just the thing: I'd never thought about it at all.

In actuality, the bomb was being considered as early as December 1938, when Otto Hahn first discovered fission. And by the end of 1939, it was more than just an idea. Behind the scenes and for the entire duration of the war, scientists were hard at work building the biggest, most deadly bomb the world had ever seen.

The narrative presented a complex history as it travelled between the research and development of American/British scientists, the Soviets' efforts to steal all plans, and the Germans' simultaneous bomb experimentation. To a small degree, I felt the panic and pressure of, what really was, a blind race. Neither side knew how far the other side had gotten, and both knew that whoever got there first would win the war. Knowing the ending did not lessen my excitement or anxiety over certain events.

And that is to Steve Sheinkin's credit. I can only say good things about his writing. Somehow he turned a true story into a suspense novel. At one point, he mentioned a plot to kidnap Werner Heisenberg, the head of the German atomic bomb program. And I thought, What?! Are you kidding me?! Why have I never heard the story of Germany's top scientist being kidnapped? Well, because it ended up not happening. But you can bet the anticipation of it kept me reading.

(On a related note, after Germany surrendered, the Americans did, in fact, secret away all the important German scientists to an English estate so the Soviets wouldn't have access to them. One of my favorite lines in the book was from the first bugged conversation after their arrival: One of the physicists asked, "I wonder whether there are microphones installed here?" and Werner Heisenberg laughed, "Microphones installed? Oh no, they're not as cute as all that.")

On almost every page, I encountered a fascinating tidbit I'd never heard before. Like the three Norwegians who blew up a ferry transporting all of Germany's heavy water and then disappeared back into their regular duties as if nothing had happened; or the story about Lona Cohen, a Soviet spy who literally placed the atomic bomb papers into the hands of an FBI agent (they were hidden in a tissue box) and then got away with them because that was the one item he failed to search; or the time when the American scientists successfully carried out the first chain reaction and Enrico Fermi was grinning like a boy at Christmas. Like I said before, this was a complex story, but all of the pieces were added in just the right way and in just the right place so that it unfolded in a perfectly seamless and completely gripping way.

Part of that seamlessness was due to the perfect punch lines at the end of every section. This one was one of my favorites: "The message to Soviet leaders was clear. If the Soviets were going to get an atomic bomb any time in the near future, they were going to have to steal it." Each line was concise and emphatic while still pushing you on to read the next section . . . and the next . . . and the next. I kept expecting them to turn into cheesy cliffhangers, but they never did. As with everything else about the book, they were stellar.

As the narrative reached its climax and they got ready to drop the bomb, I was struck by the incredibility of it all. The atomic bomb actually worked. It did exactly what they thought it would do. They were able to do a test run with a plutonium bomb, but they basically only got one shot with the uranium bomb. Years and years of research, and it could have all been a waste if one little part of it didn't go exactly the way they expected it to. As horrendous and horrific as the bomb was, there was also something completely awe-inspiring about the fact that human beings could perfectly orchestrate something so powerful and destructive.

Speaking of which, I had a little inward battle with myself over whether or not an atomic bomb should have even been dropped (and if the answer is yes to the first bomb, then is it also yes to the second one?). After they dropped the test bomb, Isidor Rabi said, "Naturally, we were very jubilant over the outcome of the experiment . . . We turned to one another and offered congratulations--for the first few minutes. Then there was a chill, which was not the morning cold." Sheinkin followed with, "It was the chill of knowing they had used something they loved--the study of physics--to build the deadliest weapon in human history."

After discussing it with Mike's family at the reunion, I am convinced that the bombs were necessary in order to end the war quickly, but it is still so sad and so, so sickening.

As I was reading this book, I kept thinking, How can you not love history if it's told like this? Then I saw that Steve Sheinkin used to write textbooks. He jokes that now he's "making up for his previous crimes" by presenting history in an authentic but fascinating way. I hope he has many stories left in him because I think this is the way history should be told.

Oh, and Albert Einstein? The one name I actually connected to the bomb? Turns out that aside from an important letter to the president, he wasn't too much of a contributor. I had no idea.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

In the last year, Code Name Verity has received a lot of attention, praise, and awards (including a Printz Honor). And it finally got to the point where I was hearing about it so much that I thought, Enough already! I'll read the book! (Actually, I was a little irritated with myself because I kept forgetting to put it on my to-read list (yet another testament that my memory is bad enough that I really do need Goodreads), and so it was a good thing it kept popping up everywhere or I probably would have never remembered to read it.)

And now the tricky part - how do I possibly give a summary of a book whose very essence lies in its carefully cloaked secrets and guarded identities? It's not like some books where the twists all happen at the end; if I start explaining or describing practically anything, I will most certainly make an inadvertent slip of the keyboard and tell you something that should be kept under lock and key. Maybe you're like me and rarely remember plot summaries, but I would not dare risk that and spoil it for someone.

So you get the most basic facts: It is historical fiction that takes place during World War II. It is about two young women, but I can't even tell you their names. Both of them take a turn narrating the story. One of them is a spy who has been captured by the Nazis and her narration is in the form of a confession (I don't think that's giving away anything important since I'm pretty sure the reader knows that right from the start). It is a fascinating tale not only because it is about two women who were both intimately involved with the war but also because it tests the true meaning of honesty, friendship, and sacrifice.

I have to say, this book was a slo-o-o-o-o-o-w start for me. If I wasn't a bit OCD about finishing books, I think I would have given up on it. I listened to it, and it literally took me a full four CDs (out of nine) before I was fully invested in it. After that, it flew, and I was quite happy I stuck it out. The first part talks a lot about flying and planes and technicalities that I just wasn't all that interested in. But in the end, I could see that it was a needed and worthwhile set-up, and the rest of the book was awesome. I'm telling you this just so you know that if you're like me, you might have to read half the book in order to give it a fair chance. (I totally understand if that's not worth it to you, but just know you'll be missing out.)

I listened to the audio, and both narrators (Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell) were amazing. It is a really emotional book, and they relayed that emotion so poignantly that I felt it. There is one point in the story where one of the women is crying, and her tears are spilling onto the pages she's writing. Even though I wasn't actually crying (at least not at that point), it was still like I could feel tears dripping down my cheeks and off my nose. Of course, this is also evidence of the incredible writing, but I know the excellent narration also added to it.

Mike listened to it, too, and although he was a little wary of its lack of male leads, he ended up liking it (except he arrogantly insisted that he liked the ending he thought up a lot more than the way it actually ended). I always like it when we read the same book because then I have someone to talk with about it. He did burst my bubble in a couple of places by pointing out how unlikely it would have been for a couple of the (major) events to take place, but then I countered by telling him that a good story is built on unlikeliness. I also thought it was interesting that he preferred one main character, and I preferred the other.

There were two phrases that were repeated regularly throughout the story (and both were used by both characters). For me, these two phrases summed up some of the underlying themes of the novel.

"Careless talk costs lives" was the first one. Much of the book focuses on the power of words: one word might save a life while another word might destroy it; also, the same words can be taken and interpreted in a multitude of different ways; sometimes, it's the things left unsaid that mean the most; and also, the mouth (and pen) is something that should be kept carefully guarded because once the words are free, we no longer have control over them.

The second phrase was, "Fly the plane, Maddy." Sometimes this was meant very literally while at other times, it seemed like there were some underlying messages: keep going, keep fighting, no matter what; focus on the task at hand; do your duty; enjoy the wonders of this life; turn off your emotions and go.

I really love a book that uses repetition in a creative and multifaceted way. Even if the author didn't intend for me to find inspiration in these memorable phrases, I found them nonetheless, and that's why reading is magic to me.

If you've read the book, you might be interested in reading this lengthy interview with Elizabeth Wein on Bookwitch. I'll be honest, I haven't read the entire interview, but it does go into a lot of interesting detail.

And also, I just heard that Elizabeth Wein has a new book coming out in September called Rose Under Fire. It is also about a female pilot in WWII (Wein herself is a pilot, so it makes sense that she would write about them), but it takes place in the infamous concentration camp at Ravensbruck.

In spite of its slow beginning, Code Name Verity was one of the best stories about friendship I've ever read. If you've read it, I'd love for you to share your thoughts about it.

Content note: there is some offensive language.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

This review discusses some important details to the plot.

Really, such a sweet story. I loved the setting: 1942, Seattle, Chinese boy in love with a Japanese girl. I've read very little about the Japanese internment...maybe we're a little ashamed? We actually IMPRISONED other Americans? I understand it was a time of fear, but still...

Anyway, the format of the book goes back and forth between 1942 and 1986. My only disappointment was in the ending (of course). It just wasn't as fulfilling as I wanted it to be. I wanted Henry to get more into the search for Keiko...I wanted more pulling of the old heartstrings. Plus, I was really disappointed that he didn't give Keiko all of her photographs back. After all the lengths he went to to keep them safe, I think he should have taken them to New York.

This was, surprisingly, a very clean novel...no swearing, no uncomfortable scenes, etc. I feel like I could, and would, recommend this book without reservation.

I wrote this review before creating this blog.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I was a little worried that with Death narrating this book, the story would be too morbid and creepy. Also, I wondered what Death would even talk about: Would there be an actual story? Or just a recounting of millions of deaths? To my relief, it was very readable, and Death is even able to offer some objective humor. He tells the story of Liesel Meminger, and although he jumps around quite a bit, and spoils the ending on more than one occasion, it's still very easy to follow. I've talked to some people who didn't really like the more modern writing style of this book (they felt like Death's bolded notes broke up the text and that some of the descriptions were just too obscure and artsy). I actually loved the writing style...it was one of my favorite things about the book. I love it when an author packs a lot of layers of description into one sentence, when he describes a very basic element of nature (like the sky) in a completely new way. Markus Zusak does just that.

I was disappointed with the amount of bad language. I can understand including some in order to be true to the culture, time period, and class of people, but all the variations on taking the name of God in vain bothered me.

The characters are wonderful though. And I was very impressed that the three men that are most influential in Liesel's life (Rudy, Papa, and Max) are all good in their own way and do everything they can to help and love Liesel. Really, all the characters seem so real, you'll want to go look them up on wikipedia to find out the rest of their stories. :-)

I wrote this review before creating this blog.

When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park

This review reveals some important plot details. Read at your own risk... 

This book is about Japanese-occupied Korea during World War II. It was a side of World War II that I'd never thought much about (if ever?). It gives the perspectives of two siblings, a boy and a girl. I also liked learning more about the kamikaze.

Part-way through the book, I was convinced that Tae-yul (the brother) was going to die. Tae-yul's sections were always given in present tense while Sun-hee (the sister) always spoke in past tense. To me, this indicated that Tae-yul wasn't alive when the war was over, so he couldn't speak about it from a past point of view. Combined with the fact that the title of the book is "When My Name was Keoko" (which is Sun-hee's Japanese name), and I was sure that my theory was right.

Of course, I loved it that I was wrong because it made for such a happy and surprise reunion, but then I'm still confused why the author varied the voices in this way? Was she just using a simple method to make them sound different? If that's the case, that's really disappointing.

I was really grateful for the author's note at the back of the book. I felt like the end of the story really left some loose ends (particularly in regards to Uncle), but the author's note talks about how the Kim family probably wouldn't have been able to be reunited until maybe as late as the year 2000, what with Communism and the division of North and South Korea. This, of course, opens up a whole new topic that could have been explored in an entirely new book.

This review was written before the birth of this blog.