Both the events leading up to and those of the Second World War had numerous consequences for many juveniles. Good-Bye Marianne: The Graphic Novel, by Irene Watts, is, as the subtitle indicates, a graphic novel, but, at the same time, it is also an abridged version of her 1998 Tundra novel, Good-Bye Marianne: A Story of Growing Up. Consequently, readers of the graphic novel who are desirous of additional plot detail can turn to the original work, and, if they want still more of Marianne’s story, they can locate the sequels, Remember Me (2000) and Finding Sophie (2002). On November 15, 1938, just a week after Krystallnacht, Marianne Kohn, almost 12, is turned away from her Berlin school because Hitler’s government has banned Jewish students from German schools. Many Jewish men, including Marianne’s father, are already either in concentration camps or in hiding, with her father being among the latter. When illness creates two openings in a December 1, 1938 rescue mission or Kindertransport which is taking Jewish children by train and then boat from a German orphanage to England, one spot is offered to Marianne. As emotionally painful as the separation will be, Marianne’s mother, concerned about Marianne’s future welfare in Germany’s increasingly antisemitic atmosphere, decides that  Marianne will take this opportunity to leave. The book closes with Marianne safely aboard the ship bound for England. 

Watts, Irene N. Good-Bye Marianne: The Graphic Novel.  Tundra, 2008. Illustrated by Kathryn E. Shoemaker. 124 pp. ISBN 978-0-88776-830-9. $14.99.

Although Monique Polak’s What World is Left is a work of fiction, its origins are found in the stories Monique’s mother, after some 60 years of silence, shared with Monique about the two years she, her siblings and parents, spent in Theresienstadt, a “model” Nazi concentration camp located in what is now the Czech Republic. Unlike other camps, Theresienstadt was not a death camp because, although it had crematoria, it was without gas chambers. What everyone feared, however, was returning to their camp quarters and finding a strip of paper bearing their name, camp ID number, and the word “Included.” This notice meant that Theresienstadt had become overcrowded and that the “Included” were to be shipped by train to one of the true death camps. In a twisted form of “fairness,” the Germans required the camp’s Council of Elders to select the “Included.” In April, 1943, Anneke Van Raalte,14, her parents and brother Theodoor, are transported from their home in Holland to Theresienstadt, a place they will remain until the camp’s liberation by Russian forces in 1945. During her time at Theresienstadt, Anneke was one of those forced by the Germans to participate in an elaborate charade that actually duped inspectors from the Danish Red Cross into thinking the concentration camp’s Jews were being well treated. The book’s title comes from a poem’s concluding lines: “Think what world is left to you still, And how lovely is that part.”

Not all European Jews ended up in concentration camps, with the true story of Régine Miller, as told by Walter Buchignani in Tell No One Who You Are: The Hidden Childhood of Régine Miller, being one example of a young girl who survived by being hidden right in front of the occupiers. The book begins on May 10, 1940, the day German troops invaded Belgium. As the story progresses, Régine, eight at the book’s outset, relates how, over the next two years, the Germans kept placing one restriction after another on Belgium’s Jews. In the summer of 1942, with her older brother conscripted to a German labour unit, her mother in hospital and her father in danger because of his being a saboteur, Régine, now 10, is sent to live initially with an old woman in a suburb of Brussels. For the next three years as Régine lives in four different homes, she must not tell anyone her real name or that she is a Jew, all the while passing herself off as a Gentile. Of her immediate family, Régine was the only one to survive the war. A series of appendices at the book’s conclusion provide readers with the necessary historical background while eight pages of b&w photos are a reminder that the book’s contents are truly fact, not fiction.

Buchignani, Walter. Tell No One Who You Are: The Hidden Childhood of Régine Miller. Tundra Books, 2008. 185 pp. ISBN 978-0-88776-817-0. $14.99.

War impacts not just the young of the invaded lands but also the youth of the invaders. Karen Bass’s Run Like Jäger tells two stories, one imbedded within the other. The contemporary story is that of Kurt Schreiber, a 17-year-old Canadian exchange student from Calgary who is completing his final year of high school in a community near Berlin, the very town in which his grandfather and namesake had grown up. Kurt’s immediate problem is the school bully, Peter Neumeyer, who labels Kurt a Feigling, a coward, just like his grandfather. Though Kurt’s grandfather also now lives in Calgary, Kurt has been unable to get him to talk about the first 23 years of his life. Consequently, Kurt has no context for understanding Peter’s taunt. Because Kurt’s fighting back physically would terminate his exchange student status, Kurt must endure Peter’s increasing violence.

By chance, Wolfgang, aka Wolf, Brandt, the grandfather of Marta Fischer who is Kurt’s growing romantic interest, happens to have been Kurt’s grandfather’s best friend during their pre-World War II growing up years, and so begins the story within the story, one which Wolf recounts. Jäger, meaning “hunter,” was Wolf’s childhood nickname for Kurt Sr., and the pair were 10-years-old when, in 1933, Hitler assumed power. Initially, all the two youngsters could think about was wearing the uniform of the DJ or Deutsche Jungvolk, the younger section of the HJ or Hitlerjugend. “We lived and breathed the DJ and longed for the day when we would take the next big step toward manhood. The HJ.” After their time at playing at being men in the Hitler Youth, the now 18-year-old joined the Wehrmacht, the army, and were posted to the Eastern Front where they quickly found that their initial romance with being “men” in uniforms was replaced by the realities of the death and carnage around them. At the book’s end, as Russian troops cross into German, Jäger wonders how it was that he and Wolf could have ever been so seduced by Hitler.

Bass, Karen. Run Like Jäger. Couteau Books, 2008. 305 pp. ISBN 978-1-55050-377-7.$12.95.

Uganda is the geographical focal point of Shenaaz Nanji’s historical novel, Child of Dandelions. By radio on August 6, 1972, President Idi Amin announced that he’d had a dream in which God had told him to expel all foreign Indians from Uganda in 90 days, with that very day constituting day one of the countdown. Because Sabine’s wealthy family, who live in a gated estate area, numbers itself among the 20,000 of the country’s Indians who, by birth, are Ugandan citizens, they do not see themselves being affected by this edict. Sabine, 15, however, immediately feels its impact when her ethnic African friend, Zena, almost 17, begins to treat her differently, calling her the child of dandelions, the seed of Indian weeds that have infested the “true” Ugandans’ lands.  Sabine is further impacted when her uncle, Zully, disappears and the family later discovers that he has been murdered by government forces. Just days before the expulsion date, Amin’s order is extended to all Indians, regardless of citizenship, and those who don’t leave voluntarily will be sent to concentration camps. Consequently, Sabine’s family become refugees heading to Canada. Child of Dandelions is a balanced presentation with Zena often serving as the voice of black Ugandans and Sabine, while chaffing at the absurdity of Amin’s edict, recognizing how following Uganda’s independence, Indians had largely replaced the white Europeans in power and wealth. To assist readers in following the approaching deadline, each chapter is headed with both the date and day number. A concluding “Historical Note” provides the necessary background for today’s youth for whom this happening is likely not even part of any school-taught history course.

Nanji, Shenaaz. Child of Dandelions. Second Story Press, 2008. 215 pp., ISBN 978-1-897187-50-0.

While the word “poetry” often elicits a gag reflex from adolescent males, free verse novels, like Alma Fullerton’s Libertad, seemingly make poetry more palatable. Because of the guerilla warfare raging around their Guatemalan mountain village,12-year-old Libertad, his seven-year-old brother Julio and their Mami, have moved to Guatemala City where they have become dump dwellers and live in a tin-roof shack. The trio, along with some 10,000 other people, eke out a dangerous hand-to-mouth existence by scavenging in the city’s garbage dump for things like cardboard that can be resold. Just after Libertad is able to save enough money to send Julio to school, Mami is killed when a bulldozer moving garbage accidentally entombs her. Alone, Libertad decides that he and Julio must make their way to the United States to find Papi who, five years earlier, had left his family and their village’s coffee fields to seek lucrative employment in America. Having only his father’s last known address, Libertad leads Julio on a lengthy, hazardous trek to reunite with Papi. A map allows readers to follow the brothers’ journey.

Fullerton, Alma. Libertad. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2008. 215 pp. ISBN 978-1-55455-108-4. $12.95.

In When Elephants Fight, authors Adrian Bradbury and Eric Walters transport readers to five areas of the world, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Sudan, where children’s lives are, or have been, at risk because of armed conflicts. Each of the five segments begins with a real child’s story which is then followed by a factual information section about the child’s natal land. This historical and statistical portion provides readers with a context for understanding the violent situation in which the children, ranging in age from six to14, find themselves. For example, in Uganda, Jimmy and his three brothers have had to become “night commuters” to escape being kidnapped or killed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a guerilla army trying to overthrow Uganda’s government. Each day, as evening approaches, the siblings must leave their small village and travel on foot some seven kilometers to the safety of a much larger community. In the morning, the children’s day begins with the almost two hour return trip back to their village. A feature of each entry is an update on the child’s life today. Photos illustrate both the child and his/her country.

Bradbury, Adrian & Eric Walters. When Elephants Fight: The Lives of Children in Conflict in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Sri Lank, Sudan and Uganda. Orca, 2008. 89 pp. ISBN 978-1-55143-900-6. $19.95.

In Sharon McKay’s novel, War Brothers, which is set in northern Uganda in 2002, the fears of being kidnaped that were expressed by Jimmy and his siblings in When Elephants Fight are realized by five boys and a girl whose lives become horrifically intertwined after they are unwillingly swept up in one of Africa’s longest running internal conflicts. Since 1987, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), has abducted some 60,000 children from their villages and homes with the children then being used as child soldiers or slaves. Jacob, 14, along with three schoolmates at a Catholic boarding school, are among those from his dorm who are taken during an LRA raid and who then undergo a three month captivity in the bush. Life with the LRA force, which is constantly on the move to avoid government troops, is filled with rules that have harsh, often fatal, consequences if broken, with the core rule being, “Only soldiers eat. If you want to eat, you will join us. This is your choice.” To become a soldier, one must first kill either an enemy or someone who has disobeyed the LRA’s rules.

While the quartet, plus two other captives, a girl and another adolescent male, do eventually escape, their seemingly achieving freedom does not provide a happy-ever-after ending to the book. Because the “returnees,” as they are called, may have experienced emotional damage because of the atrocities they have seen or in which they have participated, they are sent to reintegration centres for a number of weeks. Even upon their release, the six youth have no guarantee that their parents or communities will accept them back. Via a postscript chapter, McKay updates readers on what has happened to the sextet since their days in the relocation centre.

McKay, Sharon. War Brothers. Puffin Canada, 2008. 197 pp. ISBN 978-0-670-06784-8. $20.00.

From 1991-2002, the government of the African country of Sierra Leone was engaged in a brutal civil war with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) whose “soldiers,” many of them the same kind of child soldiers as were found in McKay’s War Brothers, terrorized villages by raping,  mutilating and killing the inhabitants while stealing or destroying their possessions and homes. The true story of one of the RUF’s victims is told in Mariatu Kamara’s The Bite of the Mango. Mariatu is 11-years-old when her tale begins. For an entire year, she and some 200 fellow villagers would hide in the bush for days and even weeks whenever a rumour suggested that the RUF might be near. When Mariatu is 12, the village’s chairman decides that, for reasons of safety, everyone should relocate to a larger nearby community. Nevertheless, the RUF attack this larger village, and during the attack, four boy rebel soldiers use a machete to cut off Mariatu’s hands, saying, “You won’t be able to vote for him [Sierra Leone’s president] now.” This horrific event occurs within the book’s first 41 pages, but the rest of Mariatu’s story, while it also contains some further hard happenings, is ultimately more optimistic as Mariatu eventually makes her way to Canada where she now attends college.

Kamara, Mariatu with Susan McClelland. The Bite of the Mango. Annick Press, 2008. 216 pp. ISBN 978-1-5541-158-7. $12.95.

 “This novel is a fictional rendering of a complex situation” writes Anne Laurel Carter in her opening “Acknowledgments” section of The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. The “complex situation” of which Carter speaks is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. What makes this book different is that it is narrated from a Palestinian perspective, that of a girl, Amani, who is six-years-old when the book opens and in her late teens at the novel’s conclusion. Amani’s life goal is a simple one - to become a shepherd like her beloved grandfather. However, in Amani’s male dominated society, her gender would seemingly disqualify her, but, with her grandfather’s support, Amani does become a shepherd to her family’s flock. However, her victory ultimately becomes hollow as, over time, Amani’s flock shrinks from over 70 to a single sheep. The cause? The impact of the gradual, but increasing incursion of Israeli soldiers and settlers into the valley, an intrusion which reduces grazing areas and which ultimately results in the bulldozed destruction of Amani’s extended family’s orchards and their homes. Like the actual conflict, itself, the conclusion of Carter’s novel finds Amani’s future unresolved.

Carter, Anne Laurel. The Shepherd’s Granddaughter. Groundwood, 2008. 224 pp. ISBN 978-0-88899-903-0. $12.95.

During wartime, understandably, the public’s focus tends to be on the men and women who are risking their lives in combat. Often overlooked, even forgotten, are those who remain behind, the combatants’ spouses and their children. As the subtitle of Deborah Elllis’s Off to War: Voices of Soldiers’ Children indicates, this book allows the children of soldiers to share some of the impacts on their lives that have occurred because of their parents’ overseas military deployments, with most such postings being in Iraq or Afghanistan. Ellis’s content is derived  from interviews with some 40 American and Canadian children and adolescents, their ages ranging between six to 17. As in Three Wishes, Ellis’s book about the Arab/Israeli conflict, she begins each entry with a brief introductory section which provides readers with a context for the child’s/adolescent’s comments. With a few exceptions, Ellis also includes (a) small black and white photo(s) of the chapter’s speaker(s).

And the children’s/adolescents’ comments? Obviously, each respondent’s experience is unique, but a number of themes emerge, few being positive. Off to War concludes with a glossary and a “For Further Information” section that includes websites, book and magazine titles, and web addresses of Canadian and American military related organizations and support associations

Ellis, Deborah. Off to War: Voices of Soldiers’ Children. Groundwood, 2008. 175 pp. ISBN 978-0-88899-895-8. $12.95.

Now retired from the Faculty of Education, the University of Manitoba, Dave Jenkinson edits the reviewing journal CM: CANADIAN REVIEW OF MATERIALS - www.umanitoba.ca/cm

Email: jenkinso@ms.umanitoba.ca