Review of Impossible Escape, by Steve Sheinkin

Audiobooks, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Version 1.0.0
Impossible Escape

A True Story of Survival and Heroism in Nazi Europe

by Steve Sheinkin
read by Rob Shapiro

Listening Library, 2023. 5 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 25, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 CYBILS Award Winner, High School Nonfiction
2024 Sidney Taylor Book Award Silver Medal, Young Adult

Impossible Escape tells the story of Slovakian teen Rudi Vrba, who in 1942 tried to escape Slovakia in order to avoid being “resettled” by the Nazis. That escape started out fine, but ultimately did not succeed, and he got pulled into the Nazi Concentration Camp network.

When reading this book, I knew he was going to escape because of the title, but the tension kept building as I wondered when it would happen. The odds against him mount as he gets sent to more and more secure camps, but the escape happens with two hours left in the audiobook. And yes, it’s certainly legitimate to call the escape impossible.

His story is so full of human details, I thought the author must have interviewed him. But realistically, we’re getting past the time when that is possible, and the Author’s Note revealed that the author instead researched in a library of Rudi’s papers. (Rudi ended up becoming a professor.) The story is gripping, and even though I have read many books about the Holocaust, the horrible barbarity he endured and witnessed is something my heart doesn’t want to believe is even possible.

Why was his story important? Because he was the first eyewitness to escape Auschwitz and testify to the systematic mass murder taking place there. At the time of his escape, Hitler was beginning to convince the Hungarian government to deport the Jews of Hungary — and Rudi’s testimony helped sway world opinion so that the remaining Jews of Hungary were saved — including his childhood friend, whose story we get alongside Rudi’s, as she did manage to leave Slovakia and escape capture.

This audiobook had me riveted — the kind of story it’s hard to stop listening until the book is done. I also wish it weren’t necessary to keep reminding the world how much evil can come from dehumanizing your enemies. May this never be repeated, and if and when it is, may heroes like Rudolph Vrba arise and escape with the truth.

stevesheinkin.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teen_Nonfiction/impossible_escape.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Check and Mate, by Ali Hazelwood, read by Karissa Vacker

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Check & Mate

by Ali Hazelwood
read by Karissa Vacker

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 32 minutes.
Review written March 13, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I decided to read this book to find out what all the fuss was about, because since the day it was published, it has been high on the list of most holds for young adult books for our library in Overdrive’s Libby. I was enchanted. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it’s about a young woman taking on competitive chess.

As the book opens, Mallory is 18 years old and it’s the summer after high school. Her friends are getting ready to head off to faraway places to go to college. But Mallory’s staying home, working as a mechanic at a garage that used to be her uncle’s. Her mother has rheumatoid arthritis and she and her two younger sisters need Mallory to stick around and get the mortgage paid. Their dad is long gone — and it had to do with chess, which Mallory decided to completely give up four years ago when her dad left.

But now Mallory’s best friend cajoles Mallory into playing chess in a charity tournament. Once there, much to Mallory’s surprise, she defeats Nolan Sawyer, the reigning world champion — someone she idolized back when she was playing chess, and who also happens to be incredibly handsome.

After that, Mallory gets offered a year-long fellowship at a chess club that wants to increase women’s participation in competitive chess. She doesn’t intend to take it, but bills need to be paid, and she sees no other choice. Then she tells herself that she can just treat it as a job and stop thinking about chess when she clocks out. Oh, and she doesn’t tell her family, because she doesn’t want to hurt her mother by talking about chess, which will make her think of Mallory’s dad.

So that’s how the fun begins. The reader will not be surprised when Mallory has more and more encounters with Nolan Sawyer. And she has a lot of natural talent, and the chess club training is helping her develop that.

The book also makes a strong point about misogyny in the world of competitive chess. The author’s note says that a real study was done, and women playing online who were told they were playing men did worse against the same opponents as when they were not told gender or were told they were playing against women. Mallory is the only woman in the tournaments where she competes and has several microaggressions to navigate. But through it all — what does she think of Nolan Sawyer? The interaction between them is beautifully portrayed, with each having some past baggage and some obstacles to navigate.

Since young adult novels have changed so much since I started writing reviews, I will mention that at the start of the book in particular, Mallory has recreational sex with both men and women. She doesn’t want to get close to anyone she has sex with, because that can get messy. The sex isn’t described in detail on the page, but it is talked about a lot. Actually in very open ways. Later when it turns out that Nolan is a virgin, they talk about both ways of being in the world without judgment. (But at the start I was thrown for a loop by how freely Mallory talked about having sex and how frequently she seemed to be doing it. Like I said, young adult novels have changed a lot in the last 24 years.)

But the romance here! Exquisite! I honestly think the fact that this was a story of falling in love over chess was especially what made me love it. And a brilliantly smart heroine! Falling in love with an incredibly smart guy! No shade whatsoever on nerdiness. And it reminded me of being in high school back in the early 1980s. I had learned that if we went on a bus trip (with choir or with my church group) — if I brought along my magnetic chess set and asked if anyone wanted to play chess — it was a sure-fire way to get to sit with an attractive guy on the bus! (Because smart guys who could play chess were the most attractive to me, anyway.) I did feel like I messed this up a little by usually beating them. But falling for someone over a chessboard? Oh yes, it gives me all the feels. And in the book, the guy is a worthy opponent who fully appreciates Mallory’s intelligence and likes her better because she can give him a challenge. Yes!

Now, I’ve never played competitive chess. I was never interested in memorizing openings and gambits and defenses, preferring games where you have to figure it out at the time. As an adult, I like games that make you think, but preferably with some small element of luck so that the same person (even if it’s me) doesn’t win all the time. I’m not completely sure her descriptions of chess play were authentic or if a talented player could suddenly do so well after time away from the game. But I wanted to believe, and it was plausible enough for me. Speaking against misogyny in chess was a bonus.

I don’t think you have to like chess to enjoy this book. But I love this story of two highly intelligent people falling in love and treating each other as equals. Beautifully done.

alihazelwood.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/check_and_mate.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Call Down the Hawk, by Maggie Stiefvater

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Call Down the Hawk

by Maggie Stiefvater
read by Will Patton

Scholastic Audiobooks, 2019. 13 hours, 47 minutes, on 12 compact discs.
Review written December 14, 2020, from a library audiobook

Call Down the Hawk is billed as the first book in The Dreamer Trilogy, but I think readers will appreciate it more who have read the four books in The Raven Cycle, beginning with The Raven Boys. That series starts out being about Blue and Gansey, but is almost taken over by Ronan Lynch and his brothers. This new trilogy is about Ronan.

So if you already know the background, it won’t take as much getting up to speed. Ronan is a Dreamer – when he dreams at night, he brings back objects from his dreams. They don’t have to be possible objects – they don’t have to actually exist in reality. If he can dream it, he can wake up to find it real. One problem with this is that if Ronan goes too long without dreaming, he starts weeping a black fluid which will eventually kill him.

In this book, we meet some other Dreamers, notably a girl named Hennessy. Every time she dreams, she brings back a copy of herself, and another flower tattoo appears on her neck. The girls live together and specialize in forging art. They can easily pose as Hennessy herself. But they all know that when Hennessy runs out of room for flower tattoos, she’s going to die.

We also meet some Moderators and Visionaries. Visionaries dream what’s going to happen in the future. And all the Visionaries are saying that the world will be destroyed – because of something a Dreamer is going to bring into reality. The obvious solution? Kill all Dreamers. We follow along with one Moderator and the teen Visionary she monitors in order for him to lead her to more Dreamers.

There’s a lot more that’s going on in this book, and it quickly draws you in with the strangeness and the fascinatingly mind-bending scenarios. Things do not resolve by the end, though some of the threads do come together.

The reader of this book has a gravelly voice I didn’t find attractive, but the more I listened, the more I felt thought an unusual voice fits this particularly unusual book.

As with The Raven Cycle, there are many unpleasant things that happen in this book, but they are so unusual and so mind-bending, that I’m going to have to read on and find out what happens next as soon as I get the chance.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/call_down_the_hawk.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Sisters of the Lost Marsh, by Lucy Strange

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Sisters of the Lost Marsh

by Lucy Strange
read by the author

Scholastic Audio Books, 2023. 6 hours, 9 minutes.
Review written March 11, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
2024 Odyssey Honor Book
Starred Review

I put Sisters of the Lost Marsh on my eaudiobook holds list because of its Odyssey Honor win for one of the best audiobooks of the year, and I was not at all disappointed. What a delightfully creepy, wonderful book! The author reads her own book with a wonderful British accent, and I was carried along through the story.

Willa is the third of six sisters, and at twelve years old she’s really the one who runs Grammy’s farm in the middle of the marshlands. As the book opens, her father, who spends most of his time drunk, has made a deal with an old neighbor that the neighbor can marry Willa’s oldest sister Grace in exchange for a fine horse named Flint.

The father is convinced in the truth of a local rhyme declaring that it’s a curse to have six daughters. Marrying one off should break the curse.

Grace does not want to marry the neighbor, and when the three oldest sisters go to the Full Moon Fayre (with Willa sneaking out to join her sisters), a frightening warning from a fortune teller suggests that Grace should run away as soon as possible.

When Grace disappears the next day, things start to fall apart. Nobody wants to give up the horse, but the neighbor insists he’s stolen if he doesn’t get his bride, and has his eyes on the next sister, Freya. Willa’s sure that Grace ran off with the Fayre, which left the same day she did. So she sets off across the marsh with Flint to warn Grace to never come back.

But there are obstacles and eerie things going on, and tales told about the marsh, a dangerous place. Nothing is as it seems at first. Willa must show great courage along the way, and the listener is right there with her. Willa must learn to discern between superstition and actual things to fear. I was rooting for Willa all the way in this satisfying read with a touch of magic and the feel of a folk tale.

lucystrange.org

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/sisters_of_the_lost_marsh.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Prisoner’s Throne, by Holly Black

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Prisoner’s Throne

A Novel of Elfhame

by Holly Black
read by Barrett Leddy

Hachette Audio, 2024. 11 hours, 58 minutes.
Review written March 18, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Okay, I confess. We don’t order ebooks or eaudiobooks until the day they’re published (because they don’t require physical processing), and I used my insider knowledge to check out this eaudiobook from our library the same day it came out. I didn’t do as I was tempted and stop my previous audiobook in the middle, but as soon as I started listening to this one, it was every bit as good as I’d expected after reading The Stolen Heir.

And yes! This sequence is only a duology! So no more suspense — the story is finished. (Though there are hints at where we might find drama for the next book.) And wow.

Yes, you should read The Stolen Heir first. And while you’re at it, you should read the entire trilogy that introduced us to Elfhame that begins with The Cruel Prince. I probably should have used this as an excuse to do some rereading, especially to remember side characters and how the different enchantments work, but it didn’t take long to feel like I at least generally knew what was going on.

I don’t want to tell any plot points, because that would give away things from earlier books. So let me talk about what I like in this book and in this series.

In the series in general, I like the romance, but I also like the politics. Which doesn’t sound like as much complete fun as you’ll find here, so let me reword that — I like the court intrigue. It works out to plots and counterplots and trying to figure out whom to trust. There’s a whole lot of that going on in this duology, as Oak is the heir to the High King of Elfhame, and Wren is heir to the Court of Teeth — which was supposedly defeated. In this book, we learn that Prince Oak has been cultivating people who are conspiring against the High King in order to thwart their plans — but he neglected to tell the king and his sister the queen what he was doing. So any little amount they find out makes him look treacherous.

I like that The Stolen Heir was told from Wren’s perspective, and The Prisoner’s Throne from Oak’s perspective. I also like that we can’t be sure for either title exactly which main character the title refers to. Wren has been a prisoner before, and Oak is a prisoner as the book opens. Both are heirs to a throne, and there’s a sense where you could say each is stolen away.

I like the romance in this book, building on the previous book. I like the way it’s based on who they are and what they’ve learned about each other — even when appearances don’t look good for them.

And I like that I don’t have to wait impatiently for the next book — although I very much hope there will be one, about some different characters. But I like that Oak and Wren’s story was resolved.

This series has shaped up into an amazing saga, spanning the mortal world and the world of faerie and how it all works. There is a lot of death and destruction, but you appreciate that Oak and Wren are both trying to do the right thing in this violent world. They both want to find someone who sees them, knows them, and loves them.

If you haven’t started the series yet, I highly recommend it.

blackholly.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/prisoners_throne.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Return of the Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner, read by Steve West

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Return of the Thief

by Megan Whalen Turner
read by Steve West

Blackstone Audio, 2020. 11 hours, 22 minutes.
Review written April 19, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

I once heard Megan Whalen Turner say that she feels she has failed if people only read her books once. It is now true that I have not read any of her books only once. The plotting is so intricate, reading them again gives you new appreciation of things you missed the first time. And listening to Steve West read is always a treat. His voice is wonderful to listen to, and when he’s reading my favorite book from 2020, all the more so.

The beginning books in the Queen’s Thief series have stunning reversals at the end. This last book is more a series of clever, small twists. This is the culmination of the series, so I won’t give away what happens except to say that the Medes finally invade, and the three kingdoms of the peninsula must work together to stop them, which is a challenge in itself.

The only thing better than reading this book is listening to Steve West read it.

Buy from Amazon.com

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Weaver and the Witch Queen, by Genevieve Gornachec

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Weaver and the Witch Queen

by Genevieve Gornachec
read by Nina Yndis

Books on Tape, 2023. 16 hours, 26 minutes.
Review written March 9, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Weaver and the Witch Queen is a story set in 10th century Norway. The word “Viking” isn’t used, but most of the men make their livelihood going on raids. This story focuses on Gunnhild, an actual historical figure who became one of the most powerful women in Norway. An Author’s Note at the end tells about what the author knew from historical documents (often conflicting) and what she imagined.

The book begins when Gunnhild is a child, the youngest in her family and subject to constant abuse from her mother. But she has two dear friends who are sisters, Oddny and Signy. They swear an oath to always be there for one another. But when a seeress comes through and declares that their fates are tied together in a bad way, Gunnhild sneaks away to be an apprentice of the seeress — with the goal of becoming a powerful woman like she is.

However, twelve years later, Gunnhild is traveling in the “way witches do” in the form of a swallow, and she witnesses a raiding party attacking and destroying the home and family of Oddny and Signy. Oddny escapes, with the help of the swallow that is Gunnhild, but Signy is carried off to be enslaved.

The rest of the book is mostly about Oddny and Gunnhild in their determination to rescue Signy. The first big obstacle is that it’s winter. So they both spend time in the camp of the king’s son and heir Aeric in order to leave as soon as the weather allows them to travel again. Gunnhild hopes to travel to the underworld and learn where Signy has been taken. Oddny hopes to get silver from a man captured from those who raided her family and be able to afford to go after her.

But much happens that winter. Gunnhild is presented with another option for gaining power. Aeric is set to inherit the throne of Norway, but he has gotten that position through violence, murdering his brother at the request of his father because his brother was influenced by witchcraft. But his remaining brother is seeking to destroy Aeric through witchcraft — and the witches in his employ are seeking to destroy Gunnhild and were behind the destruction of Oddny’s home.

Sound complicated? The plot moves along at a gentle pace and it all makes sense, but there’s plenty of drama underneath it all to keep you interested. The method of witchcraft seemed completely plausible, though the author invented it. And Gunnhild’s insecurities about her apprenticeship being interrupted and all the other emotional undercurrents seemed authentic. The narrator Nina Yndis does a wonderful job with the Norwegian names. I also appreciated that there was what we would call a transgender Viking, and his existence and motivations were all handled well. The word “transgender” was never used, but we learn that his father gave him a girl’s name at birth.

In all, this book gives a richly detailed, obviously well-researched world and a wonderful story of a woman claiming power in that world.

genevievegornichec.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/weaver_and_the_witch_queen.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Isles of the Gods, by Amie Kaufman

Adventure, Audiobooks, Award Winners, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Isles of the Gods

by Amie Kaufman
read by Nikki Patel, Homer Todiwala, Donnabella Mortel, Vidish Athavale, and Steve West

Listening Library, 2023. 12 hours, 49 minutes.
Review written February 14, 2024, from a library eaudiobook
2023 CYBILS Award Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction
Starred Review

I listened to this book because it was a Cybils Award Finalist (even though I’m not on the panel this year), and I was mesmerized. In the first place, the production is very well done, with one of my favorite narrators, Steve West, reading a large portion. The book has five viewpoint characters, with a narrator for each one. This enhanced the experience and made it easier to realize when a different character was telling the story.

Our main character, though, is Selly. She’s a merchant’s daughter and has grown up on ships. Now, she’s gotten the disappointing news that her father isn’t coming back for her after a year apart. So she plans to sneak aboard the last boat heading north before winter. She plans to get her things off her assigned ship and go in the night. But before she can get off the ship, her captain tells her the whole ship is leaving quietly in the night. The prince, whom everyone thought was leading a procession of ships to various allies, is actually traveling undercover on their ship.

Every twenty-five years, the royal family of Alinor must make a sacrifice at the isle of their goddess, the Sentinel. Well, Prince Leander has been putting it off, and now he’s a year late — and war is brewing. He’s a powerful magician, but for this one important task, he’s been a slacker.

And it turns out there are people and powers who want to stop Leander so that Alinor’s goddess will not have power, and their own god can awaken and they can start a war.

Two of the five narrators are among the group trying to stop Leander. Let’s just say that the voyage does not go smoothly. There is plenty of danger, plenty of tension, and high stakes.

Because of the high body count in the other Amie Kaufman book I’ve read, Illuminae, I was not surprised that there’s also plenty of death in this book. Don’t get too attached to any character, because all lives are in danger and those who want to stop Prince Leander are ruthless.

I must admit, at the start I rolled my eyes a little, thinking it highly unlikely that our two main characters, Selly and Prince Leander, could fall in love with such dramatically different backgrounds. I wasn’t rolling my eyes at all by the end. Amie Kaufman pulls off a tender slow-burn romance based in character, and it’s exquisitely done.

Now, I’m not completely sure I wanted to know all the motivations of the people working to thwart Prince Leander, and maybe five different viewpoint characters wasn’t entirely necessary. But the other characters had short segments so I was never impatient to get back to the main story, and it did add depth to my understanding of the politics of the two countries and how much was at stake.

Though this book stops at a good place, there are some big loose ends that are not tied up, so I will be waiting impatiently for July’s release of the next book, The Heart of the World. It is already on a list to order for the library.

amiekaufman.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/isles_of_the_gods.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Prequel, by Rachel Maddow

Audiobooks, Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 2

Prequel

An American Fight Against Fascism

by Rachel Maddow
read by the author

Books on Tape, 2023. 13 hours, 10 minutes.
Review written February 29, 2024, from a library eaudiobook

Wow. This book was eye-opening. Prequel is a history of Fascism in America in the decade leading up to World War II. And I’d had no idea how deeply entrenched, how scripted by Nazi Germany, and how nearly successful it was. I do not recommend that any of my Jewish friends read this book. You probably already know how horrible anti-Semitism is in America, but I needed my eyes opened, and I was honestly shocked. Rachel Maddow quotes Americans who wanted to go further than Hitler against the Jews. And they say so in descriptive and hate-filled language.

They had detailed plans, with thousands of followers on board. Plans to kill Jews and stockpile weapons and bombs and overthrow the government. Of course, they claimed Roosevelt was a Jew, all Jews were Communists, and all Communists were Jews.

A few turns of luck helped foil their plans, though I feel a little guilty saying that, because one of those turns of “luck” was an assassination of a key figure. Another bit of “luck” was that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, taking the wind out of the sails of isolationists.

Rachel Maddow has dug through the abundant documentation and gives us a grim story. Yes, private and government investigators got to the truth — but most of the Fascists were never brought to justice, mainly because of politics — and because many of them were Senators and members of Congress. In fact, one major plot successfully carried out was that the German government was able to distribute propaganda postage-free by using members of Congress and their free postage for official mailings.

The whole thing is well-researched and well-documented, thoroughly shocking (at least to people who don’t believe in white supremacy), and eerily resonant with events of today.

And that’s why she gave the book the name Prequel — these events were a prequel of the rise of white nationalism in our own time. Sadly, the results of the tireless investigators who uncovered the fascist plots were not widely known in the time the work was done. But now, more than eighty years later, we have access to all the details and can take note.

Something that struck me was that actual Senators and others who called themselves American patriots were literally giving speeches and sending out mailings quoting verbatim from scripts and talking points written in Nazi Germany. The Nazis had to use an elaborate scheme to get free postage from Congressmembers. But today — sending information over the internet is already free. Do we think for a moment that foreign propagandists won’t use that power?

This wasn’t a particularly happy book to listen to. But it was certainly eye-opening. And extremely educational.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/prequel.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Stateless, by Elizabeth Wein, read by Moira Quirk

Audiobooks, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Stateless

by Elizabeth Wein
read by Moira Quirk

Little, Brown Young Readers, 2023. 10 hours, 38 minutes.
Review written February 27, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review
2024 Odyssey Honor

I shouldn’t be surprised by how good the books I’ve read lately are — because I’ve been reading award winners. Stateless won an Odyssey Honor, which is the award for best audiobook, and this audiobook was indeed wonderful. The book is also by the author of the amazing book Code Name Verity, so, yes, I expected brilliance.

This book is set in Europe in 1937, when the Nazis are already in power and there’s already war in Italy, but World War II hasn’t broken out yet, and people are still hoping for peace. So much so, in fact, that a young people’s air race across Europe is organized to promote peace. Competitors from many different nations are flying across Europe in timed flights, with stops in various places for socializing and promoting peace.

Stella North is representing England even though she doesn’t carry a British passport. Her parents were killed by Bolsheviks in Russia when she was three years old, and her aunt and uncle got her out of Russia. So now she has a refugee passport stating that she was born in Russia but the Soviet Union doesn’t claim her. She is essentially stateless.

And it turns out that Stella isn’t the only competitor in the Youth Air Olympics who is stateless. She is the only woman, though, and is hounded by the press. They’re not sure she’ll be able to handle the pressure of the race — so when she sees two planes far ahead of her come close together — and then one of them falls into the English channel, Stella tells about the crash, but she’s afraid to let anyone know she saw the other plane that may have been responsible for the crash. She’s not sure whom she can trust, even among the experienced chaperones.

And that’s not the only incident of sabotage and dangerous threats in an epic race that’s supposed to be for peace. Stella must learn whom to trust and whom to avoid — and then how to keep safe during their day and night in Nazi Germany.

There’s lots of tension, suspense, and drama in this amazing story, along with a sprinkle of romance and international friendship. And an author’s note at the back gives you key background details such as there were a higher proportion of female pilots in the early days of aviation than there are now. The only sad part is that it’s hard to imagine a good future for these young people with World War II right around the corner. But I was glad to share in this exciting part of their story. So good!

elizabethwein.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/stateless.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?