Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

   

This is an exceptional and wonderful book.  I was given it as a prize on the History Girls blog but had resisted reading it for some weeks because the blurb made clear that this was a story that took us into a Second World War concentration camp, and I had a suspicion that it was going to be a harrowing read. 

It is harrowing, but so very rewarding that I urge you all to take a deep breath and read it.  How does it reward?  With wonderful characters one believes in and cares about, and who reflect that war is never a simple matter of goodies versus baddies.  With a plot that surprises even when we already know what happens in the bigger picture.  With detail about life in one corner of one horrific Nazi death camp history that came as news to me (I'd no idea, for example, that manufacturers such as Bosch and Siemens used slave labour in camps to manufacture the very bombs, gas and gas chambers with which that slave labour, and their friends back home, were being killed).  And with beautiful writing that includes some very accessible and moving poetry, along with descriptions of flying by an author who knows about that first hand. 

Rose Justice is a young American woman who has come to England to work in the ATA delivering planes and personnel for the RAF.  Chasing a doodlebug in the hopes of bringing it down before it reaches Britain, she loses her way over France, lands in Germany, and is captured.  She is sent to the Ravensbrook camp for women.  There she meets a range of women from a range of countries who meet a range of fates, but the ones who most stay with us are the Polish 'lapins'; the 'rabbits' that Nazi doctors experimented on.  I'm not going to give away what happens, but promise that we finish the book with damp hankies but feeling energised to make our world better.  I felt uplifted by it. 

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Reviewed by Jackie Marchant

It’s the Second World War and a young SOE agent is about to make a written confession to the Gestapo, because she can’t bear the thought of another interrogation by SS-Hauptsturmfurher von Linden.  She has two weeks and then they will shoot her, but that is preferable to her fate if she does not confess.  She calls herself a coward.

But read on and you will see that she is anything but.  She is brave and clever in equal measure, running rings round her captors despite her predicament.  She uses her long confession as a tribute to her best friend Maddie, who lost her life trying to land the plane that secretly brought her to France.   At the same time, she manages to riddle her confession with code that will ensure that her mission will not fail.  She even works out a way to get her notes out there.

This book is about a strong female friendship, it is about plucky young women and their determined war effort and it is about triumph in the most difficult of circumstances.  It is both happy and sad,  with two strong main characters that have you cheering and crying in equal measure.  The scenes of cruelty at the hands of the Gestapo are handled with such sensitivity that the full horror comes over without the need for any graphic detail.  The relationship between Linden and Verity is so well drawn as Verity manages to creep under his skin and turn the tables on him, that you almost feel sorry for him.  Almost.   

Then there is betrayal, danger and plenty of action, as the resistance try and carry out their task without their key player.   All this makes Code Name Verity a book that will engage right from start to finish, quite deservedly earning its place on the Carnegie shortlist.   

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE