Review: Peter's War: A Boy's True Story of Survival in World War II Europe
Peter's War: A Boy's True Story of Survival in World War II Europe by Deborah Durland DeSaix and Karen Gray Ruelle, illustrated by Deborah Durland DeSaix Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Rachel J Fremmer Peter’s War: A Boy’s True Story of Survival in World War II Europe relates the true story of Peter Feigl, a highly assimilated German Jew who celebrated Christmas. As the Nazi danger grew, his parents even had Peter baptized. Nonetheless, he and his family were, like so many others, eventually forced to flee his home as the Nazis rose to power. First with, and later separated from, his parents, Peter makes his way around Europe as his successive hiding places each become too dangerous, ultimately sneaking across the border to safety in Switzerland in 1944. The workmanlike prose of Peter’s War is overshadowed by the scrapbook-style art, a combination of actual photographs, watercolor paintings, fragments of Peter’s diary, and a map of Europe with a line denoting...