KEY: jP = Picture Books; jZ = 1st and 2nd Grade Readers; jE = 3rd and 4th Grade Readers; JF = 5th Grade and Up
Borden, Louise | THE LITTLE SHIPS THE HEROIC RESCUE AT DUNKIRK IN WORLD WAR II A young English girl and her father take their sturdy fishing boat and join the scores of other civilian vessels crossing the English Channel in a daring attempt to rescue Allied and British troops trapped by Nazi soldiers at Dunkirk. |
1997 | unpaged |
Marx, Trish | HANNA’S COLD WINTER A child tells how his family and other people in Budapest help save the famous hippopotamuses in their city's zoo from starving one difficult winter during World War II. Based on a true story. |
1993 | unpaged |
Borden, Louise | THE GREATEST SKATING RACE During World War II in the Netherlands, a ten-year-old boy's dream of skating in a famous race allows him to help two children escape to Belgium by ice skating along the frozen canals past German soldiers. |
2000 | 44 p. |
Deedy, Carmen | THE YELLOW STAR When the Nazis insisted that Danish Jews wear a Star of David, King Christian X said that he would wear one and encouraged all Danes to do so in order to keep all Danes from harm. |
2000 | 32 p. |
Patterson, Don | FIGHTER ESCORT |
1999 | 86 p. |
Polacco, Patricia | THE BUTTERFLY During the Nazi occupation of France, Monique's mother hides a Jewish family in her basement and tries to help them escape to freedom. |
2000 | unpaged |
Bartoletti, Susan | THE BOY WHO DARED In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people. |
2008 | 202 p. |
Bawden, Nina | CARRIE’S WAR In 1939, 12-year-old Carrie Willow and her little brother Nice were evacuated from war-torn London. They find themselves in a small Welsh village where Carrie, upset by a family feud, commits an act that haunts her for thirty years. |
1973 | 158 p. |
Bawden, Nina | HENRY Evacuated to the English countryside during World War II, a fatherless family tries to raise a baby squirrel that also lost its home. |
1988 | 119 p. |
Bawden, Nina | THE REAL PLATO JONES 13-year-old Plato Jones tries to come to terms with his mixed heritage while visiting Greece, as he finds out more about his Welsh grandfather, a World War II hero, and his Greek grandfather, a supposed traitor. |
1993 | 166 p. |
Bergman, Tamar | ALONG THE TRACKS Still wearing badges that mark them as Jews, Yankele and his family flee Nazi-occupied Poland and begin their lives as refugees. But when the train they're on is bombed, Yankele and his family are separated. Here Yankele's life as a refugee ends, and his life as one of the abandoned ones begins. |
1991 | 245 p. |
Booth, Martin | WAR DOG After her owner is arrested while poaching, Jet is requisitioned by the British Army and sees duty on the beach at Dunkirk, searching for survivors of Germany’s bombing raids on English cities, and in Italy at the end of the war. |
1997 | 133 p. |
Bradley, Kimberly Brubaker | FOR FREEDOM The Story of a French Spy Despite the horrors of World War II, a French teenager pursues her dream of becoming an opera singer, which takes her to places where she gains information about what the Nazis are doing: information that the French Resistance needs. |
2003 | 181 p. |
Cheng, Andrea | MARIKA Although she was raised Catholic, Marika learns how dangerous it is to be of Jewish heritage while living in Hungary during WWII. This novel is based on true events in her own mother's life. |
2002 | 163 p. |
Elliott, L.M. | UNDER A WAR-TORN SKY After his plane is shot down by Hitler's Luftwaffe, 19-year-old Henry Forester of Richmond, Virginia, strives to walk across occupied France, with the help of the French Resistance, in hopes of rejoinging his unit. |
1993 | 242 p. |
Harrison, Barbara | THEO A 12-year-old puppeteer performs bravely on and off the stage after joining the Greek resistance movement during World War II. |
1999 | 154 p. |
Hartnett, Sonya | THE CHILDREN OF THE KING Cecily and Jeremy have been sent to live with their Uncle Peregrine in the English countryside, safe from the war, along with a young refugee named May. But when Cecily and May find two mysterious boys hiding in the ruins of a nearby castle, an extraordinary adventure begins. |
2014 | 226 p. |
Heneghan, James | WISH ME LUCK While on an ocean voyage to Canada to escape the air raids in his Liverpool home, 12-year-old Jamie Monaghan faces another kid of life- threatening situation. Sinking of the Benares. |
1997 | 195 p. |
Holm,Anne | NORTH TO FREEDOM/I AM DAVID David's entire twelve-year life has been spent in a grisly prison camp in Eastern Europe. He knows nothing of the outside world. But when he is given the chance to escape, he seizes it. With his vengeful enemies hot on his heels, David stru ggles to cope in this strange new world, where his only resources are a compass, a few crusts of bread, his two aching feet, and some vague advice to seek refuge in Denmark. Is that enough to survive? David's extraordinary odyssey is drama . |
2004 | 239 p. |
Hughes, Dean | SOLIDER BOY In a compelling saga of parallel lives and lost innocence, two boys, one American, one German, both fueled by patriotism, join their respective armies during World War II and cross paths on the battlefield during the Battle of the Bulge. |
2001 | 162 p. |
Ibbotson, Eva | THE DRAGONFLY POOL At first Tally doesn't want to go to the boarding school called Delderton. But she soon discovers that it is a wonderful place where freedom and self expression are valued. Tally organizes a ragtag dance troupe so the school can participate in an international folk dancing festival in Bergania in the summer of 1939. There she befriends Karil, the crown prince, who would love nothing more than to have ordinary friends and attend a school like Delderton. When Karil's father is assassinated, it is up to Tally and her friends to help Karil escape the Nazis and the bleak future he has inherited. |
2008 | 337 p. |
Magorian, Michelle | BACK HOME 12 year-old Rusty must face major changes in life when she returnes to England after spending the years of World War II in the United States. |
1984 | 375 p. |
Magorian, Michelle | GOOD NIGHT, MR. TOM A battered child learns to embrace life when he is adopted by an old man in the English countryside during the second World War. |
1981 | 318 p. |
Maguire, Gregory | THE GOOD LIAR The year is 1940, and France has fallen to the German army. Two young boys develop a secret friendship with a German soldier, knowing that it is dangerous. The adult Marcel relates the story in a series of letters to school children. |
1999 | 129 p. |
Matas, Carol | IN MY ENEMY'S HOUSE When German soldiers arrive in Zloczow during World War II, a young Jewish girl must decide whether or not to conceal her identity and work for a Nazi in Germany in order to survive. |
1999 | 167 p. |
Morpurgo, Michael | THE AMAZING STORY OF ADOLPHUS TIPS When English villagers must evacuate their homes so the Allies can practice D-Day landings, Lily's cat enters the restricted area to give birth. Two soldiers help the frantic Lily, forming a lasting friendship that changes their lives. |
2006 | 140 p. |
Westall, Robert | BLITZCAT During World War II a black cat journeys all across war-ravaged England in an effort to track down her beloved master. |
1975 | 1989 p. |
Westall, Robert | THE MACHINE GUNNERS After an air raid, a group of English children hide a German machine gun from adults who are looking for it. |
1975 | 186 p. |