Daniel’s Story Lexile: 720

By: Carol Matas

Fourteen-year-old Daniel is Jewish. He can barely remember leading a normal life before the Nazis came to power in 1933. Memories of happiness and safety are fading as Daniel and his family are forced from their comfortable home in Frankfurt to go first to the Lodz ghetto in Poland, and then to the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Daniel now asks himself the simplest of questions — What has happened to me? Who am I? Where am I going? — and cannot begin to find answers.

0

Waiting for AnyaLexile: 770

By: Michael Morpurgo

Twelve-year-old Jo helps a Jewish man and Jewish children escape to Spain from France when the village of Lescun is invaded by German soldiers.

0

Run, Boy, RunLexile: 570

By: Uri Orlev

Srulik is only eight years old when he finds himself all alone in the Warsaw ghetto. He escapes into the countryside where he spends the ensuing years hiding in the forest, dependent on the sympathies and generosity of the poor farmers in the surrounding area..

0

The Upstairs RoomLexile: 400

By: Johanna Reiss

A Dutch Jewish girl describes the two-and-one-half years she spent in hiding in the upstairs bedroom of a farmer's house during World War II.

0

The Boy Who Dared Lexile: 760

By: Susan Bartoletti

Just as the Nazis are rising to power, Helmut Hubener, a German schoolboy, is caught up in all the handsome storm trooper uniforms, the shiny jackboots and armbands, the rousing patriotism - all serve to draw him into this bright new world full of promise and hope. Now Helmuth sits in a German prison, awaiting his precarious fate.

7

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Lexile: 1080

By: John Boyne

Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.

4

The Book Thief Lexile: 730 high content

By: Markus Zusak

The story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist, books. With the help of her accordion–playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

3

Escape: Children of the Holocaust

Lexile: 940

By: Allan Zullo

This collection relates the true stories of Holocaust survivors who were children during the war. Their heartbreaking tales of courage and endurance in the face of unimaginable loss are a testimony to their faith and strength of spirit.

3

The Klipfish CodeLexile: 770

By: Mary Casanova

Marit is a ten-year-old Norwegian girl living under Nazi rule in 1942. Despite her grandfather's warnings, she secretly helps the Resistance free Norway from German occupation.

6

Between Shades of Gray

Lexile: 490 high content

By: Ruta Sepetys

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

3

Milkweed Lexile: 510 high content

By: Jerry Spinelli

He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.

7

Hitler’s DaughterLexile: 600

By: Jackie French

When Anna starts her story about Heidi, ten-year-old Mark thinks that it is just going to be another one of Anna's tales. As the story unfolds though, Mark is gripped by the thought of what it must be like to be the young girl whose father is the infamous Hitler.

1

We Fought BackLexile: 1090

By: Allan Zullo

When the Nazis invaded their homes and killed their friends and families, these real-life teens went on the run and joined up with resisters known as partisans. These brave men and women used guerilla warfare and sabotage, from blowing up supply trains to attacking convoys, to thwart the Nazis.

2

Number the StarsLexile: 670

By: Lois Lowry

Ten-year-old Annemarie and her best friend Ellen often think of life before the war.  It's now 1943, and their life is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town.  When the Jews are "relocated," Ellen moves in with Annemarie's family and pretends to be one of them, yet her life is still in danger.

1

Destined to Live Lexile: 960

By: Ruth Gruener

Pretty, carefree Aurelia Gamser had an normal life growing up in 1930s Poland - until violent acts and the deportation of Jewish families to concentration camps changed everything in her world. Hiding out, her very life at risk every day, Ruth struggled to remain strong and sane. And though she was destined to live, her struggle continued after the war, when she began a new life in America, as a teenager who had been through horrors.

8

The Berlin Boxing Club

Lexile: 880 high content

By: Robert Sharenow

Fourteen-year-old Karl Stern has never thought of himself as a Jew. But to the bullies at his school in Nazi-era Berlin, it doesn't matter that Karl has never set foot in a synagogue or that his family doesn't practice religion. Karl longs to prove his worth to everyone around him. So when Max Schmeling, champion boxer and German national hero, makes a deal with Karl's father to give Karl boxing lessons, Karl sees it as the perfect chance to reinvent himself. A skilled cartoonist, Karl has never had an interest in boxing, but as Max becomes the mentor Karl never had, Karl soon finds both his boxing skills and his art flourishing. But when Nazi violence against Jews escalates, Karl must take on a new role: protector of his family. Karl longs to ask his new mentor for help, but with Max's fame growing, he is forced to associate with Hitler and other Nazi elites, leaving Karl to wonder where his hero's sympathies truly lie.

3

Four Perfect PebblesLexile: 1080

By: Lila Perl and Marion Blumenthal Lazan

Following Hitler's rise to power, the Blumenthal family was trapped in Nazi Germany and, for over six years, was forced to live in refugee, transit, and prison camps. Their true story is one of horror and hardship, but also one of courage, hope, and the will to survive. Includes photos and bibliography.

5

Someone Named Eva

Lexile: 820

By: Joan M. Wolf

The Nazis take Milada away from her family and send her to a Lebensborn center in Poland. There, she is told she fits the Aryan ideal: her blond hair and blue eyes are the right color; her head and nose, the right size. She is given a new name, Eva, and trained to become the perfect German citizen, to be the hope of Germany's future — and to forget she was ever a Czech girl named Milada.

1

Sarah’s KeyLexile: 610

By: Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door to door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard—their secret hiding place—and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.

2

Other Good TitlesAvailable from Scholastic Order!

The Nazi HuntersYears after the Holocaust, brave people sought

justice by tracking down German war criminals who had escaped into hiding.

The Boy On The Wooden BoxWhen Oskar Schindler added young Leon’s

name to the list of employees, it literally saved the boy’s life.

Prisoner B-3087One boy. Ten concentration camps. An

astonishing TRUE story of survival and the indomitable human spirit.