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My Family for the War

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My Family for the War

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Overview

Winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder medal for most oustanding children's book in translation.

Escaping Nazi Germany on the kindertransport changes one girl's life forever

At the start of World War II, ten-year-old Franziska Mangold is torn from her family when she boards the kindertransport in Berlin, the train that secretly took nearly 10,000 children out of Nazi territory to safety in England. Taken in by strangers who soon become more like family than her real parents, Frances (as she is now known) courageously pieces together a new life for herself because she doesn't know when or if she'll see her true family again. Against the backdrop of war-torn London, Frances struggles with questions of identity, family, and love, and these experiences shape her into a dauntless, charming young woman.

Originally published in Germany, Anne Voorhoeve's award-winning novel is filled with humor, danger, and romance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101575215
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/16/2012
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	412
Lexile:	900L (what's this?)
File size:	974 KB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Anne C. Voorhoeve is an award-winning German novelist and screenwriter. She lives in Berlin, Germany.

Tammi Reichel is an instructor of German at the University of Richmond and lives with her family in Virginia.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder Award
Won the Buxtehulde Bulle Prize for Youth Literature
Nominated for the Evangelischer Buchpreis (The Protestant Book Award)
An ALSC Notable Children's Book
Kids' Indie Next List

• "With the personal Kindertransport history, the intense drama about family, faith, guilt, love, and loyalty in wartime makes this an important addition to the Holocaust curriculum."
—Booklist, starred review

• "Events and facts are expertly woven into the girl's emotional growth, and changing relationships . . . provide a rich exploration of identity and self. With a compelling main character and taut and insightful story line, this novel is sure to find no shortage of readers, and it adds a valuable perspective to collections of World War II fiction."
—School Library Journal, starred review

"An engaging and often moving coming-of-age story. A poignant, thoughtful work."
—Kirkus Reviews

"This multilayered story [which] cogently explores themes of motherhood and adoptive families is gracefully portrayed."
—Publishers Weekly

"My Family for the War is a must-have for young adults. The novel is simultaneously beautiful, touching, and heart wrenching."
—VOYA

"This is a solid addition to Holocaust collections, life on the home front during the war, and for discussions of what is a family."
—LMC

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

Gr 7 Up—In 1938 Berlin, 10-year-old Ziska and her best friend run from classmates-turned-bullies who torment them for being Jewish, even though Ziska's family converted in the last century and she knows nothing of the Jewish religion or culture. When her father is beaten during a brutal midnight raid on their apartment and imprisoned, Ziska earns a position on the kindertransport to England, where she begins a new life as Frances, foster daughter to an Orthodox London "family for the war." In an engaging, honest voice, she relates her fears, triumphs, and revelations as she learns English and the rituals of Judaism, adapts to a new life, and copes with guilt about her growing love for her new family. She tries in vain to acquire permits for her parents to join her while they keep up a soon spotty, strained correspondence that brings increasingly heartbreaking news of those left behind. By war's end, Frances, now 17, has experienced evacuation to the English countryside and another foster home, air raids, bomb shelters, and first love with page-turning immediacy despite the sense that the story is told by a much older, reflective Frances looking back. Events and facts are expertly woven into the girl's emotional growth, and changing relationships—especially those with her complex, fading mother and differently complex foster mother—provide a rich exploration of identity and self. Like Frances, the mostly Jewish cast of secondary characters is varied, multidimensional, and sometimes unlikable. With a compelling main character and taut and insightful story line, this novel is sure to find no shortage of readers, and it adds a valuable perspective to collections of World War II fiction.—Riva Pollard, Prospect Sierra Middle School, El Cerrito, CA

School Library Journal

Winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder Award
Won the Buxtehulde Bulle Prize for Youth Literature
Nominated for the Evangelischer Buchpreis (The Protestant Book Award)
An ALSC Notable Children's Book
Kids' Indie Next List

* "With the personal Kindertransport history, the intense drama about family, faith, guilt, love, and loyalty in wartime makes this an important addition to the Holocaust curriculum."
—Booklist, starred review

* "Events and facts are expertly woven into the girl's emotional growth, and changing relationships . . . provide a rich exploration of identity and self. With a compelling main character and taut and insightful story line, this novel is sure to find no shortage of readers, and it adds a valuable perspective to collections of World War II fiction."
—School Library Journal, starred review

"An engaging and often moving coming-of-age story. A poignant, thoughtful work."
—Kirkus Reviews

"This multilayered story [which] cogently explores themes of motherhood and adoptive families is gracefully portrayed."
—Publishers Weekly

"My Family for the War is a must-have for young adults. The novel is simultaneously beautiful, touching, and heart wrenching."
—VOYA

"This is a solid addition to Holocaust collections, life on the home front during the war, and for discussions of what is a family."
—LMC

From the Publisher

"This is a solid addition to Holocaust collections, life on the home front during the war, and for discussions of what is a family."

Library Media Connection review

* "With the personal Kindertransport history, the intense drama about family, faith, guilt, love, and loyalty in wartime makes this an important addition to the Holocaust curriculum."

starred review Booklist

Kids' Indie Next List, Spring 2012

Recommendations for Kids from Indie Booksellers

A 2013 ALSC Notable Children's Book

ALSC

* "With the personal Kindertransport history, the intense drama about family, faith, guilt, love, and loyalty in wartime makes this an important addition to the Holocaust curriculum."

Booklist