Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
“For the Fallen” – Laurence Binyon
If you were to ask me to name any World War II novel that best represented the courage and hope of those who lived during the war, I couldn’t name you one, but I could introduce you to many powerful stories of resilience. Here are three of my favorites for a younger (twelve and up) audience.
Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan is the story of one harmonica and four children – a story of the power of music and family and hope and how a harmonica binds them all through space and time. In the beginning is Otto, a young German boy living decades before the others. Otto stumbles into what could only be considered a historical fairytale – three sisters with a prophecy centered around a harmonica. In 1933 we meet the German-born Friedrich Schmidt, with his birthmark, epileptic fits, and all-consuming love for music, working with his father at a harmonica factory. As Hitler rises to power, his sister joins the Hitler Youth, and Friedrich and his fair-minded father are thrown into danger because of their beliefs and Friedrich’s birthmark. The American pianist Mike Flannery and his younger brother Frankie, orphans struggling to stay together in a merciless Pennsylvanian orphanage in 1935, hold tight to the memory of their grandmother’s love for music. As the famous Hoxie Philadelphia Harmonica Band of Wizards presents itself as an intriguing new opportunity for the brothers, a rich and emotionally distant lady winds up adopting both of them despite only wanting one. Seven years later, Ivy Maria Lopez is the daughter of Mexican immigrants carving out a life for themselves in California as war comes to America and her older brother enlists. Her father is given the opportunity to take care of the property of a Japanese family detained in an internment camp, and Ivy is uprooted yet again in her short life to a place that barely welcomes her, forcing her into a segregated school for Mexican children. There, a wonderful teacher encourages her love for the harmonica and eventually the flute. All four stories intersect in one last triumphant section at the end, after the war, wrapping each section up – wrapping the story of the harmonica’s journey through the years and the hope it brings to each child.
I first discovered a hardcover copy of My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve at a library book sale for five dollars. Originally written in German, then translated to English, this novel follows a young girl with Jewish roots living in Germany at the time of Hitler’s rise to power. “Franziska Mangold is not Jewish,” the synopsis reads, “but in Hitler’s eyes, her Jewish ancestors are enough to make her the enemy.” As Hitler cracks down on Jews, eleven-year-old Franziska is forced to immigrate to England on the secretive kindertransports – alone, with only a suitcase as company (and later, a boy named Walter Glücklich). There, lonely and desperate, she meets a Jewish couple, the Shepherds. They’re looking for a Jewish child to take in as their own son goes off to war and Franziska coerces them to take her in. Frances, as she’s known now, has to navigate the complex new world of English Jews without any previous knowledge of Jewish culture. Her relationship with the Shepherds has a rocky start, but as time passes and Frances’ own family is caught in the crossfires of Hitler’s Holocaust, they learn to depend on each other. Further complications arise in the form of evacuation during the Blitz of 1939 as Frances is torn away from what she had started to consider family. Frances perseveres through many trials through the years; never losing the hope of seeing her family again despite the odds. My Family for the War is an exploration of Jewish heritage and the way strangers become family in times like these.
This Light Between Us by Andrew Fukada is the bittersweet story of an unlikely friendship between a Japanese American boy named Alex Maki and a Jewish French girl named Charlie Levy. Told through Alex’s point of view and a series of exchanged letters between the pair, the novel explores the struggles of being alienated in your homeland. Like Echo, This Light Between Us deals with the Japanese internment camps, albeit more directly as the American-born Alex – Nisei, “second generation,” the son of immigrants – and his family are forced into Manzanar War Relocation Center after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Across a sea, Charlie lives in danger as the Nazis close in on France, eventually being thrown full force into the ghastly Holocaust mourned so many years later. They’re only ten when they reluctantly begin writing to each other as part of an exchange setup but as time goes on, their bond strengthens as both endure trials and tribulations because of what their identities lie in, their letters being the light of each other’s worlds in dark times. Alex eventually enlists as part of the infamous 442nd Infantry Regiment that was comprised almost fully of Japanese Nisei. The story and letters span from Manzanar to Auschwitz to the bloody battlefields of Europe, portraying incredible resilience in the face of death.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
“For the Fallen” – Laurence Binyon