Staff Picks Category: World War II

Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn [Book]

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Based on historical events in Nazi Germany, this novel follows the lives of three women who intersect at Heim Hochland as part of the Lebensborn breeding program intended to help racially fit women produce Aryan babies for Hitler. Gundi is a university student involved in the resistance who finds herself pregnant by her activist Jewish boyfriend. Hilde is eighteen, underappreciated at home, devoted to Hitler’s regime, and eager to raise her status by having a Nazi official’s baby. Irma is a nurse who lost her fiancé and unborn child during the Great War, discovered her beau concealing a woman in his cellar, and needs the fresh start that working at Heim Hochland offers. Surrounded by looted art and antiques, sustained by the best food available, and subject to the whims of powerful men, these women find connections among the expectant mothers, “apprentice” mothers, and employees of the facility. When Gundi’s child is born with obviously non-Aryan characteristics, she learns of the potential consequences (euthanasia) and must seek help where she can. Parallels may be drawn between Nazi eugenics then and reproductive agency now, and the fundamental sexism of men making decisions about women’s bodies, providing ample topics for discussion groups.

For fans of The Lilac Girls, The Island of Sea Women, Call the Midwife, and World War II women’s stories.

For Those Who Are Lost by Julia Bryan Thomas [Book]

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In the chaos of evacuating children from Guernsey to England in 1940, Lily Carre switches places with her sister Helen, undertaking the care of a pair of children–Henry and Catherine Simon–who are being reluctantly sent away by their mother Ava. Lily wants to escape an unhappy marriage, and Helen wants to remain on Guernsey with their aging parents. Once in England, Lily puts nine-year-old Henry on a train bound for Manchester, where he starts out in a dormitory of evacuees and is eventually sent to a Yorkshire farm for the rest of the war. Lily takes four-year-old Catherine with her to Cornwall, which she arbitrarily chose based on its proximity to the sea and distance from the continent. They find refuge with the assistance of local vicar Peter Ashby and embed themselves in village life, Lily posing as a widow and Catherine’s mother. Following the stories of Lily, Ava, Henry, and Peter during the war, and checking in with Catherine thirty years later, the reader sees several aspects of life during wartime and long term consequences of impulsive decisions.

A sure bet for readers of personal war stories and those who want to know, “What about the women and children?”

A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell [E-Audiobook]

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This biography of a completely unsung WWII heroine reads like a spy thriller. In spite of what seems today incredible discrimination because of her gender, American Virginia Hall was instrumental to the creation of various undercover operations in Nazi occupied France, working for the British long before the US entered the war. The danger of those operations, descriptions of the conditions for the civilian population, and of the torture to which suspected members of the Resistance were subjected are not sensationalized. The narrator, Julie Stevenson, does an admirable job of distinguishing between the various, largely male, characters. This title is recommended especially to fans of Susan Elia MacNeal’s Maggie Hope series, which are about a woman in similar circumstances in the SOE in the British secret service.

For Love and Country by Candace Waters [Book]

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During the months following the Pearl Harbor attack and full involvement of the United States in World War II, Lottie Palmer (of the Detroit Palmers) decides she wants to do something that matters with her life. When she informs her fiancé the day before their wedding, he doesn’t understand at all why she might willingly leave her privileged life, so the next morning she tells her mother, packs a bag, and runs away to join the Navy WAVES. Lottie’s mechanical skills are confirmed during basic training, where she and her assigned roommate Maggie have so little in common they can’t have a civil conversation. After further training, Lottie’s assigned to an airplane mechanic division in Pearl Harbor, where she is the only female (and best mechanic) on a team repairing and restoring aircraft for deployment. After repeatedly being assigned together, Lottie and Maggie develop from nemeses to friends, experiencing the war at closer range than most. After the battle at Iwo Jima, the base is filled with wounded–including Lottie’s erstwhile fiancé, forcing her to deal with their relationship and her feelings for a superior officer. When Lottie defies orders to undertake a daring rescue, her military career ends and the rest of her life begins.

Well researched and engaging, Waters tells a tale that’s a good fit for fans of Therese Anne Fowler and Marie Benedict, and others who enjoy historical fiction centering women’s experiences.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly [Book]

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Spanning more than twenty years in the lives of three women, and based on real people and events, Kelly’s debut brings historical facts to startling life. As the narrative begins in 1939, Caroline Ferraday is a former Broadway actress and New York socialite who works with the French consulate, Herta Oberheuser is an ambitious young German doctor, and Kasia Kuzmerick is a fifteen-year old Polish girl just getting involved with the resistance. As World War II progresses and Hitler’s army proceeds through Europe, circumstances draw these women together. Caroline’s relief work becomes more necessary. Herta secures a position as camp doctor at Ravensbrück, and Kasia is transported there with her mother and sister after her courier activities are reported. When the war ends, and the camp is liberated, the story continues. Caroline pursues reparations and justice for the displaced, Herta is tried and convicted of war crimes, and Kasia attempts to return to a normal existence in now-Communist Poland, marrying and having a baby. Details of fundraising efforts, immigration issues, Reich politics, camp life, and interpersonal relationships render a gripping read that lingers well after the book ends.

This is for World War II aficionados, biography fans, and book clubs, as well as teens looking for more after The Diary of a Young Girl.

Hidden by Loïc Dauvillier [Graphic Novel]

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Memories of being hidden, and keeping those memories hidden… A grandmother tells a special story from her childhood in this touching graphic novel about being young during World War II.

Douina’s lives with her mother and father in Paris. Her life is relatively normal until she is made to wear a star on her jacket. Her father had told her it was a sheriff’s star but everyone begins to treat her differently. Soon her parents are taken away to work camps and Douina is left to be cared for by neighbors and kind strangers. As she settles into her new life and new name, Simone, she can’t help but miss her mother and father. Once the war has ended and it is safe again, she travels back home and begins the search for her parents.

This book offers children a glimpse into the past- what it was like to be young during WWII and how some children and families were affected by the Holocaust in France. Words by Loïc Dauvillier and art by Marc Lizano and Greg Salsedo

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay [Book]

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This emotionally laden story starts off with two alternating voices. Julia Jarmond is an American-born journalist, who has been living in Paris for 20 years, complete with a French family, and a marriage that is increasingly unstable. She is tasked with writing the story of the 1942 Vel d’Hiv Jewish roundup by the French police on the 60th anniversary of that difficult but little known episode in French history. We also see the roundup from the perspective of Sarah, a 10-year-old who is taken to the Vélodrome d’Hiver with her family, but without her younger brother. The stories of these two lives converge, with a key unlocking many long-buried secrets. This is a story that will stay with you.

City of Thieves by David Benioff [Book]

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