Category: Children’s Fiction Review

Max in the Land of Lies

by Adam Gidwitz
read by Euan Morton

Listening Library, 2025. 9 hours, 6 minutes.
Review written April 16, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Max in the Land of Lies is the second half of the duology begun in Max in the House of Spies – and, yes, together they make one story, so you will want to read both parts in order.

In my review, I said that Max in the House of Spies is a whole lot of fun. This one? I wouldn’t use the word “fun” to describe it. Max is still super clever and outsmarts many of the people he’s up against – but now he’s in Nazi Germany. I do have to mention that Adam Gidwitz is still narrowly walking the line of believability – that the British would send a 12-year-old Jewish boy into Nazi Germany and that he could possibly get away with it. (This is a kids’ book – that’s not really a spoiler.)

There’s a huge amount of tension in this book. Max is a genius with radios, and he infiltrates the Funkhaus – the radio station in Berlin, getting a job there. And during the course of the book he meets Herr Fritscher (the “Voice of Germany”), Goebbels {the minister of propaganda), and has lunch with Adolf Hitler.

So along the way in Max’s journey, it’s not so much about fun pranks he pulls, as the first book, as about the changes happening in Germany. We see that there are as many reasons to be a Nazi as there are people in Germany, and we hear some of the people tell their reasons. We hear about how Germany was humiliated after World War I and folks’ life savings were worthless and they simply hoped that Hitler could make Germany great again. And how people were willing to turn in their neighbors, but others look the other way.

We also learn about how people are more apt to believe the Big Lie than small lies – because everyone tells small lies, so they know to watch for those, but they don’t believe that someone would tell a truly Big Lie. Even if they don’t believe it at first, they will start getting used to the Big Lie if it’s repeated often enough. The author’s note says that Hitler never admitted to doing this – but this strategy is what he said Jews were doing, and Fascists then and now accuse others of the things they are doing themselves. In the radio station, Max learns about the invented “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and how this was used to blame the Jews for everyone’s troubles. He learns about the “science” of phrenology and how the shapes of Jews’ skulls show they are inferior – but funny thing, it doesn’t give him away. Another interesting propaganda thread that I hadn’t heard about before was about all the countries Britain had already invaded and colonized – so clearly Germany needed to defend themselves against Britain. (Never mind that Hitler started this war – how was he any worse than the British?)

Max is also looking for his parents – and let’s just say that the book doesn’t flinch from telling the reader about the cruelty of concentration camps. So yes, this book is sobering.

The author’s note at the back is fascinating. Max is fictional, but most of the characters he encounters are actual historical figures. Of course this book was written long before Trump was reelected, but there are plenty of things about Nazi Germany that resonate with America today. As the author says, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

So besides an intricate and well-written spy novel, in this book you’ll also get a history lesson and a timely warning.

adamgidwitz.com

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