Overview
Korinna is a loyal member of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany, and she is appalled to discover that her parents are hiding a Jewish family right there behind her own bedroom wall. Aren't Jews vermin? What if the authorities find out? Should she report her parents as traitors, as she has been taught to do? This novel won the Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature. The history is accurate, and the plot is dramatic; but, unfortunately, the writing is florid, with contrived dialogue and with tears and trembling on every page. The illustrations are awkward and superfluous. Instead of the understatement of Holocaust accounts like Leitner's The Big Lie (1992), there's melodrama ("No more would she walk through the beautiful countryside. No more would she smell the sweet flowers of spring. No more . . ."). Still, readers will be caught by the courage of the Righteous Gentile family and by the changes in Korinna as she gets to know these Jews as people.