The Lion's Run by Sara Pennypacker

If you're like me and think, “surely there isn’t anything else to say or learn about World War II?!,” someone like Sara Pennypacker finds something new. In The Lion's Run, I learned more about the Nazi’s, what was taken from people in France, about the Resistance, than I could have imagined.

In any book about WWII, characters are inevitably in grave danger. In grown-up books, 90% of the characters you love die. Despite taking place in occupied France (spoiler alert), even though it might appear that characters are going to get caught and killed... no one is. Only one kitten dies out of a whole litter (so bad luck for said kitten), but that’s a pretty sunny outcome considering. An orphaned, under-estimated boy; his resistance organizer and adoptive mother; a rich, enlightened courageous girl; her hidden horse, all the hidden kittens (except that one); the pregnant single mother; her stolen baby... everyone lives and/or escapes.

And our protagonist is critical to each of those plot points. It’s nice when an author empowers a child in such a convincing way. Young patrons learn that kids can change the world.

Middle Grade Fiction pr8095781