The Boy on the Wooden Box, Leon Leyson. This is a memoir written by a man that survived the Holocaust due to Oskar Schindler, the very man renowned for saving hundreds of Jews during WWII. Leon and his family moved from rural Narewka, Poland to the bigger city of Krakow when his father got a new job. When the Nazis conquered Poland, Leon, his parents, three brothers and sister were taken away by train to live in the ghetto behind the barbed wire fence. From there, they were transported to work camps where their hope was tested over and over. Beatings, starvation, sickness, fatigue and separation were a constant. Gas chambers, massacres, massive graves were all around. Sunken eyes, caved in bodies, hollow souls. Leon remembers the day his older brother Tsalig was taken away by train and never seen again.

Leon's father, good with locks, happened to impress a Nazi soldier who allowed him to stay in his employ. It was none other than Schindler himself.  Despite the horror of the camps, the family had an angel looking out for them. Little did they realize how much Schindler himself was going out on a limb to protect his Jewish employees.

When the allies came to Poland, capturing the German soldiers and releasing the Jews, Leon, his parents, one brother and his sister lived to tell their stories. Leon followed his parents to Los Angeles where he closed himself off from his past and made a new life. His experiences remained silent, until others encouraged him to tell the world his story. Here it is. Read it. Be moved. Never forget.

The War that Saved My Life, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Young Ada, living in England at the start of WWII, has never left the rat-and-roach-infested apartment where she lives with her younger brother, Jamie and her Mam. Ada has a club foot and her Mam deems it too embarrassing to let her outside. Her only connection with the world is looking out a window and waving. She gets around by crawling, until she forces herself up on her feet, painfully learning to walk. One night, when all the children are leaving on trains for the countryside, Ada and her brother sneak out, joining the evacuation. Upon arriving to the outskirts of England, when all the children are provided a home, Ada and Jamie are forced upon Susan, the local spinster, who doesn't want them either. However, through Ada's nightmares and Jamie's bed wetting, Susan warms to them, despite their resistance. She encourages Ada to go outside, getting her a pair of crutches to get around. Butter, the pony, becomes her first friend, whom she learns to ride like the little girl she saw from the train window. Wanting to get Ada the surgery she needs to correct her foot, Susan consistently sends letters to Mam asking for permission, only to be met with silence. Despite feelings of unworthiness, Susan is persistent and shows Ada she is smart, capable and lovable. Ada makes friends, Jamie goes to school and life takes on a routine until the air raid sirens go off, forcing them to below ground shelters. Susan is encouraged to send them further away, but she holds tight, maintaining they will stay together.

One day, on her trek to help Fred with the horses, she notices an unusual sighting: a man rowing ashore, burying something in the ground and walking toward the road. Told that any suspicious behavior should be reported to the authorities, she races to the police station, only to be met with chuckles. Standing strong and waiting to tell someone that will listen, they soon find out that the man was, indeed, a spy.

As war is getting closer and closer, Ada and Jamie arrive home one afternoon to find Mam standing outside the house. She forces them to go home with her and there is nothing Susan can do, but try to give Jamie his cherished copy of The Swiss Family Robinson. The stench, the rats, the lack of food, the hatred all come rushing back to them both. With Mam having taken Ada's shoes and crutches and air raid sirens going off, they hold each other tight, wanting to go "home."

This is beautiful and I couldn't stop reading it. The reader will be right next to Ada as she continues to triumph over the hand life dealt her. She learns to love and accept and believe and hang on. She is a character with grit and fortitude and fingernails to hang on. Read it and be moved.

The Port Chicago 50, Steve Sheinkin. During WWII, in San Francisco sat Port Chicago, a navy base. Bombs were being made and put onto navy ships by mostly teenage black boys to be sent to the fighting troops. At the height of the war, an explosion occurred killing and wounding hundreds of men. The young black men were ordered to go back to doing the exact same work, but they refused, wondering why their white counterparts weren't also ordered to work the Port. When the Navy cried mutiny, most of the men went back to work, with the exception of 50 men. Their strong stance set history in motion and tells the story not often heard before.

Sheinkin, author of Bomb, (look for a book review in this blog) in his masterful way, tells yet another gripping story not to be missed. If you are a history buff, pick this book up and be transformed. Photographs of the key figures are sprinkled throughout, bringing this heroic read even more to life.

Echo, Pam Muñoz Ryan. Another favorite book, plunked right during the rise of Adolf Hitler. The front and end pages tell the tale of Otto playing hide and seek, only to stumble and fall into the fairy tale of three forgotten girls with the gift of music. Only with the passing on of a harmonica, can they be released from the spell of their captive witch. From there, the story tells in turn, the tales of three young lives: Friedrich, Mike, Ivy.

Jews are disappearing in Germany and Friedrich and his father are scrutinized because they are not members of the Nazi party. Friedrich's sister, Elisabeth, joined the party and fights against their resistance. They must choose between their beliefs and the love for their sister/daughter. Hiding proves difficult because of Friedrich's port stain birth defect covering half his face and his uncontrollable hand movements as though he is conducting an orchestra.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in Pennsylvania, Mike and his younger brother, Frankie, are orphans, living in an unfit orphanage. Mr. Howard, the lawyer for Mrs. Sturbridge, is charged with finding a young girl to adopt, but leaves with the two boys, not baring to separate their longing arms around one another. When he brings them home to Mrs. Sturbridge, they are unwanted and rebuffed along with the lonely piano that Mike longs to play. Yet, in order to retain her wealth, she must bring joy back to the household. Mike strikes a deal with the sad woman to keep Frankie only.

Ivy and her family are moving yet again, away from her only friend in the world, to tend the farm of the Yamamotos, a Japanese family forced to move to an internment camp in California. Their neighbors, the Wards, suspect the Yamamotos of espionage and search for proof. Their son died in the war and they blame Kenny Yamamoto for living.

All three stories are connected through the "silken thread of destiny," or a harmonica with the letter M  on the side. The stories are separate, yet come together at a beautiful concert in Carnegie Hall. With a sense of fulfillment, Ryan brings closure and satisfaction to a not-to-be-forgotten story yearning to be enjoyed over again. Consider rereading the front and end pages before closing the book. Without a doubt, awards are sure to await Ryan.

"Your fate is not yet sealed.
Even in the darkest night, a star will shine,
a bell will chime, a path will be revealed."

Odette's Secrets, Maryann Macdonald. The true account of young Odette, a Jewish girl living in Paris, during the height of the Nazi regime. With her father joining the  French army and her mother the Resistance, she is sent away to the countryside to live with friends until better times bring them together again. Odette, forced to keep secrets and look like a normal Christian girl, questions her past but during this traumatic historical time, no answers are forthcoming. She makes friends and learns to live a new kind of life, at times, forgetting what her old life, including her father, were like.

This story, written in a series of short poetic chapters invites the reader to live along side Odette, as she struggles with living a lie, but a lie to save her life. A couple of scattered pictures throughout help the reader see her as a real girl, living in a horrific time.

Prisoner B-3087, Alan Gratz. "We are alive. We are alive, and that is all that matters. We cannot let them tear us from the pages of the world," said Yanek Gruener, or B-3087, to a young boy in the midst of the horrific Holocaust at Birkenau concentration camp. Watching the wall go up around Krakow, Poland, in 1939, to being separated from his family and knowing their fate, to the ten concentration camps that Yanek endured, his story is important. The author does acknowledge taking liberties, thus calling it a novel; however, Yanek (currently living in America and named Jack) is indeed real and the cruelty, starvation, brutality and hatred is very, very real. This story requires emotional stamina, because it is graphic, unimaginable and horrifying. Before suggesting this to a mature reader, I would recommend reading it first so you can prepare your reader for what lies ahead.

Under the Egg, Laura Marx Fitzgerald. Times are tough for Theodora (Theo) Tenpenny and her mother, more obsessed with solving mathematical theorems, than being a mother. Theo's beloved grandfather, Jack, worked as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and she was a frequent visitor, becoming knowledgeable of famous pieces of art and their artists. Upon Jack's deathbed, he uttered these words to her, "It's under the egg. Look under the egg. There's . . . a letter. And a treasure." These few "misinterpreted" words, along with finding a painting in the house believed to be of significant value, leads Theo and her new friend, Bodhi, a famous, pampered movie star, on a hunt. With help from the local librarians, the Internet and primary resources, they learn that Jack was a POW during WWII and creatively hid a famous, unknown painting by Raphael. This leads to more questions about who her grandfather really was and how he came to have such a painting in his possession.

The author provides some background information on Raphael and his work, along with other famous painters. This is a great story; however, more for your sophisticated readers that are ready for an art history lesson, as well as Nazi Germany and the Monument Men.