Title: A Night Divided
Author: Jennifer A. Nielsen
Pages: 317
Finished: August 22, 2017
First Sentence: There was no warning the night the wall went up.
Summary: Gerta's father and brother travel to West Berlin just before the Berlin wall goes up, effectively separating the family for years. Gerta, her oldest brother, and her mother live on the East Berlin side of the wall. It's a world of want, spying on your neighbors, and wanton propaganda. Gerta thinks she'll never see her family again when she sees her father on a viewing platform, miming the act of digging. Now it's a race for her to dig her way under the wall before her brother is conscripted into the army.
Thoughts: The Cold War is a history I've read very little about, and what I know is primarily from the American side of things. It amazes me that conditions were like this so late in the game. By the time I was old enough to be aware of anything, Germany was a unified country again (though the wall came down in my lifetime).
This year, the vast majority of the books on the Caudill list seem to be working to make kids aware of the situation at hand in our world. Books about kids who have no money, or are in bad situations and can't get out of them. Books about fascism. Books about racism. This one takes a historical look at a fascist country where people who are different are a threat. Definitely a world I don't want to live in.
Read for the Caudill Challenge.
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