This series of graph­ic nov­els cel­e­brates instances of hero­ism in the face of threats and pos­si­ble death dur­ing World War II. In these four vol­umes, the heroes include a Nor­we­gian spy and resis­tance fight­er, a group of Allied pris­on­ers as they dig their way out of a Ger­man POW camp, and a young Amer­i­can pilot shot down over Nazi-occu­pied ter­ri­to­ry. Only one title, Death Camp Upris­ing, con­tains Jew­ish content.

Each vol­ume opens and clos­es with a chap­ter of text. Sto­ry­telling in graph­ic form occu­pies the bulk of the pages and height­ens a sense of action and adven­ture. The sto­ry­telling is engag­ing and cap­tures the ten­sion of the escapes, while the illus­tra­tions make the accounts more acces­si­ble for young read­ers. While the dia­logue is fic­tion­al, the escapes the books are based on are fac­tu­al; the heroes were all real people.

At times, logis­ti­cal mat­ters are glossed over. The font in the graph­ic sec­tion may make it dif­fi­cult to read, and not all chal­leng­ing words are includ­ed in the glos­sary, mak­ing the con­tent less appro­pri­ate for the tar­get­ed readership.

The series, does, how­ev­er, effec­tive­ly present the scope of Nazi pow­er dur­ing WWII for young read­ers ages 9 to 12 years.

Addi­tion­al Titles Fea­tured in Review