It’s the summer of 1942 and twelve-year-old Isabel Brandt hates all this talk about war. She’d rather spend her time having her hair bobbed and her nose shortened before she enters junior high in the fall. She arrives with her parents at Moskin’s hotel for their usual Catskills vacation and observes that the war has already infiltrated her life through staff changes and food rationing. Worse, she has to share a cabin with the elusive, alluring fourteen-year-old Helga, a German-Jewish refugee and niece of her mother’s friend, Mrs. Frankfurter. When Mrs. Frankfurter falls ill, Helga is invited to stay with the Brandts in their Bronx apartment, sharing Isabel’s room.
In Isabel, Perl has created a likable, quirky character who likes to insert French phrases into her conversations and who is coming of age during a time of change. Isabel doggedly pursues learning Helga’s secrets, how and why she came to America. Only when Helga admits the truth and runs away does Isabel dem- onstrate her transformation from a carefree seventh-grader to a young woman committed to doing what’s right.
Perl, who grew up in Brooklyn, gives readers the benefit of her experiences in this posthumously published historical novel. She transports them convincingly to the Forties and wartime. One drawback, however, is that characters philosophize on soapboxes about Nazi atrocities and the effect of war on America. Also, Isabel’s French phrases can only be understood through context; they are not translated.
Recommended for ages 10 – 14.
Barbara Krasner is the author of many books across genres, including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and children’s literature. Her recent titles include 37 Days at Sea: Aboard the M.S. St. Louis, 1939, Civilian Casualties in War and Ethel’s Song: Ethel Rosenberg’s Life in Poems. Her book Goldie Takes a Stand! Golda Meir’s First Crusade was a recipient of the Sydney Taylor Honor Award. She holds a Ph.D. in Holocaust and genocide studies from Gratz College, teaches in the Holocaust and genocide studies program at the College of New Jersey, and serves as director of the Mercer County Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education Center. She also holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
