Chil­dren’s

Front Lines

Michael Grant
  • Review
By – May 9, 2017

In Front Lines, Michael Grant re-imag­ines a World War II where female sol­diers are allowed to enlist in the Unit­ed States army. The sto­ry fea­tures the nar­ra­tives of three teenaged female sol­diers which occa­sion­al­ly con­verge: Rio Rich­lin, a Cal­i­for­nia farm girl, Frang­ie Marr, an African-Amer­i­can girl from Okla­homa, and Rainy Schul­ter­man, a Jew­ish girl from New York City.

Grant suc­ceeds in apt­ly por­tray­ing the time peri­od appro­pri­ate­ly despite a more mod­ern” con­cept. How­ev­er, the fic­ti­tious premise obfus­cates the real­i­ty that there were in fact female sol­diers fight­ing for the Unit­ed States in World War II. Despite this, Front Linesoth­er­wise reads as a work of his­tor­i­cal fic­tion. Grant dis­plays the strug­gles of wartime and the toll it takes on the human spirit.

Although each girl has her own per­son­al rea­son for enlist­ing, their tenac­i­ty is unpar­al­leled. After their enlist­ments, the girls begin their train­ing, but noth­ing will pre­pare them for the atroc­i­ties of the actu­al war. Rio, who hoped to be assigned as a dri­ver, is appoint­ed to fight on the front lines, Frang­ie works hard to become a medic, but her gen­der and skin col­or are fre­quent­ly unjust­ly protest­ed, and mul­ti-lin­gual Rainey is assigned to work in intel­li­gence. In addi­tion to the tur­bu­lent expe­ri­ence of war and com­bat, the pro­tag­o­nists’ expe­ri­ences are ampli­fied due to ram­pant dis­crim­i­na­tion. Grant includes abhor­rent racist, sex­ist, and anti-Semit­ic epi­thets, unfor­tu­nate­ly apt for the time peri­od. In par­tic­u­lar, Frang­ie is sub­ject to vile racism and Rainy expe­ri­ences anti-Semitism.

At over 500 pages, the book is lengthy and chock-full of numer­ous com­bat scenes and accom­pa­ny­ing dis­turb­ing imagery. Although it focus­es main­ly on wartime expe­ri­ences, Grant does touch upon more human­is­tic ele­ments, many via sub­plots. How­ev­er, sev­er­al of these are left unre­solved, per­haps as incen­tive to check out the sequel. Addi­tion­al­ly, there are a few chap­ters which fea­ture an unnamed, omni­scient narrator.

An exten­sive bib­li­og­ra­phy and sources are list­ed at the end. Grant also includes a note explain­ing cer­tain details of the book such as which ele­ments were fab­ri­cat­ed and which were factual.

The con­tent of Front Lines is pri­mar­i­ly dark and grit­ty, but ulti­mate­ly it is a well-writ­ten nov­el. It will be of inter­est to read­ers ages 12 and up who enjoy his­tor­i­cal fic­tion and action-packed reads.

Jil­lian Bietz stud­ied library tech­nol­o­gy and research skills and cur­rent­ly works in the library sys­tem. She is a book review­er for the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and Kirkus Review Indie. Jil­lian lives in South­ern California.

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