The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler Aladdin (imprint of Simon & Schuster), 2024 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rachel Aronowitz Buy at Bookshop.org Mila and Hannie are 12 and 15 year old Jewish sisters living in Holland during World War II. Their parents have no choice but to send them to Amsterdam to live with a non-Jewish family, to protect them from the Nazis. Hannie is a headstrong and strong-willed teenager and secretly joins the Dutch Resistance as an undercover agent while Mila tries to live a normal life by making friends and trying to manage her sister's sudden aloofness, and worrying about the fate of her parents. The chapters shift between this narrative and present day London where 8th grader Liv, who is Mila's future granddaughter, is navigating friendships and school and her aging grandmother. The narrative structure of this book feels a bit uneven and the narrative shifts strike me as overwhelming for the intended audience. We have present day London, in wh...

 When the World Was Ours  by Liz Kessler Aladdin (imprint of Simon & Schuster) Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Meg Wiviott Buy at Bookshop.org When the World Was Ours follows the lives of Leo, Elsa, and Max from 1936 to 1945. Opening on Leo’s ninth birthday, the three best friends ride Vienna’s giant ferris wheel. When Leo accidentally collides with an English couple, a friendship blooms. The joy of that day does not last long, however. Despite the rising tide of Nazism, Leo’s family remains in Vienna. His father is arrested and sent to Dachau and then to Auschwitz. Leo and his mother scramble to get visas out of Austria, but to no avail. Finally, the couple Leo bumped into on the ferris wheel three years ago agree to sponsor them. Elsa, who is also Jewish, and her family escape to Czechoslovakia, but are eventually sent to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. Max’s father, an ardent Nazi, moves to Munich to work at Dachau. To please his father, Max joins the Hitler You...