Author: Elizabeth Wein
Publisher: Egmont Press
Publication Date: February 2012
Genre/Format: Historical Fiction/Novel
GoodReads Summary: I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.
That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.
He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.
We are a sensational team.
What I Think: I have to say that I was fairly confused at the beginning of this book. It's definitely a gripping beginning. Right away I was curious about the narrator and what kind of predicament she is in and how she got there and what she's going to do about it...but I was confused for a while until I was able to piece bits of it together. I found myself going back to read the summary and to look at some other reviews online just because I felt like I was missing something. Most people were very vague in their reviews, but they did say that it made more sense as everything went along and a few shared that they read it twice to go back and look at all the details that made more sense after reading the entire story through once. Having finished the book, I can see what they are talking about. It's a little bit of a Sixth Sense kind of book...although it's not about ghosts or anything. It's just a book that you'll read differently after you know the whole story. The first time, it's about reading it and taking it in but all the clues that the author gives you won't make sense until you know the whole story. Pretty crazy actually. I always enjoy girl power books, and while this book is historical fiction, the two main characters are definitely strong and courageous women.
I can't really say anything more other than read the book! And know that you just have to stick with it until it makes more sense (if it doesn't make sense to you right away). I've heard that this is a book people are saying is a contender for the Printz. My heart is with John Green's The Fault in Our Stars but I can see how this book could be in the running and I'm sure it's a book that's going to grow on me the more I think about it and the more I talk with others about it.
Read Together: Grades 8 - 12
Read Alone: Grades 9 - 12
Read With: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (adult) by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Snatch of Text: "What's in my future? A tin of kerosene poured down my throat and a match held to my lips? Scalpel and acid, like the resistance boy who won't talk? My living skeleton packed up in a cattle wagon with two hundred desperate others carted off to God-knows-where to die of thirst before we get there? No, I'm not traveling those roads." (taken from the audio)
Mentor Text For: Making Inferences, Characterization, Descriptive, Personal Narrative, Visualizing
Writing Prompts: Write about a time in your life when you did something for another person even though it didn't benefit or possibly hurt you.
Topics Covered: Friendship, War, Courage, Flying, Decision-Making
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