Resistance

Chaya Lindler is a Jew in Poland during the Nazi occupation.  Her younger brother and sister have been taken from the ghetto on the transports, and her parents have lost the will to keep going.  Chaya, however, can't give up.

Her blonde hair puts her in a position to travel among the regular Poles and the Nazis as a courier delivering food, medical supplies, and forged documents.  But soon, that isn't enough.  She and her friends begin actively fighting back against the Nazi's.

When a raid goes wrong, and her resistance cell is destroyed, Chaya is left alone and unsure.  She begins a journey out of Krakow unsure of who she should trust.  The first person she meets is Esther, a meek and fearful girl from their former cell.

They make their way across Poland to the Warsaw ghetto.  The people have already fought back against the Nazis, and now they are preparing for retaliation.  They have limited supplies, and the people are weak from a near starvation diet.  There is little hope of winning, but there is hope and a kind of peace in fighting back.

Jennifer A. Nielsen's new book is one of my favorites of the year so far.  It is engaging, suspenseful, and a powerful story of endurance and friendship.  Chaya's journey through the ghettos of Poland reveals the depth of Nielsen's research and the horrors of the Nazi occupation.  Throughout the book, characters despair at the ineffectiveness of the Polish people and other nations who stand by arguing about politics while the Jewish people are on the verge of annihilation.  This is an excellent work of historical fiction with parallels to the modern world.  Make sure you read the author's note at the end.  Highly recommended for middle and high school libraries.