The Boy Who Dared - Softcover

Bartoletti, Susan Campbell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 043968014X ISBN 13: 9780439680141

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 2018

Synopsis

A powerful and gripping novel about a youth in Nazi Germany who dares to the truth about Hitler, written by a Newbery Honor Book author.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, Hitler Youth, and fleshed it out into a thought-provoking nonfiction novel. When 16-year-old Helmut Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason. Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmut's story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times, to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan Campbell Bartoletti is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of many fiction and nonfiction books for children. Her fiction includes the novels The Boy Who Dared, Dear America: A Coal Miner's Bride, and No Man's Land, as well as a number of picture books. She won the Newbery Honor for her nonfiction book Hitler Youth. A former eighth-grade teacher for 18 years, Bartoletti now writes full-time and lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

Review:

Awards and Praise for The Boy Who Dared:
A YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
A Booklist Best Book for Young Adults
A Booklist Editors' Choice
A 2009 Notable Book for a Global Society
An NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People
* "The teen's perspective makes this a particularly gripping way to personalize the history, and even those unfamiliar with the background... will be enthralled by the story of one boy's heroic resistance in the worst of times... This is an important title for the Holocaust curriculum." -- Booklist, starred review
"[An] inspiring tale of conscience and courage." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Bartoletti offers another perspective on the Holocaust, demonstrating that even if the effort proves unsuccessful, the courage and convictions of a minority should be motivation to speak the truth rather than remain silent. It's a message that must be continually emphasized as a lasting legacy of the Holocaust." -- School Library Journal
"A stirring tale of one young man's resistance to a government he came to regard as evil... The character development, based on research and interviews with those who knew Helmuth, is solid, and the author excels in creating a sense of immediacy in the setting. Her Nazi Germany is a place that is hauntingly familiar, enveloped in a government-fed sense of fear in this welcome addition to a body of literature begun with Anne Frank's diary." -- VOYA
"Bartoletti accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of building dramatic tension in a story whose outcome we know from page one. Helmuth's questioning voice lives on in the pages of this compelling work." -- Cooperative Children's Book Center, recommended

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 043968014X
• ISBN 13: 9780439680141
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208