World War II

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Manhattan Beach is a 2017 novel by American writer Jennifer Egan. Born in Chicago and raised in San Francisco, Egan, now a New Yorker, did much of her research for the novel at the Brooklyn Historical Society. Using oral histories, photographs, and other supporting documents, she reconstructed the vibrant world of the wartime Brooklyn Naval Yard and Coney Island. The novel won the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, was long-listed for the... Read Manhattan Beach Summary

Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) is a memoir and work of nonfiction concerned with psychotherapy. The author, Victor Frankl, was born in 1905 and later became a psychiatrist in Vienna—an occupation that for some time protected him despite the fact that he was Jewish. When he was offered the opportunity to obtain a visa and escape to America, he chose to stay in Nazi-occupied Austria to be near his aging parents. Inevitably, he and his family were... Read Man's Search for Meaning Summary

Maus by Art Spiegelman was the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It originally ran in Spiegelman’s Raw magazine between 1980 and 1991 before receiving mainstream attention as two collected volumes, Maus I in 1986 and Maus II in 1991. This guide is based on the 1996 complete edition. This historic memoir interlaces two narratives, one of Spiegelman’s Jewish father as he survives World War II Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp, and... Read Maus Summary

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Milkweed is a young adult historical fiction novel by Jerry Spinelli. Published in 2003, Milkweed won the 2004 Golden Kite Award and 2003 Carolyn W. Field Award in fiction. The novel follows a young, unnamed boy’s life in Warsaw, Poland, during the Holocaust. Orphaned at a young age, the unnamed protagonist runs wild in the streets of Warsaw, stealing bread from unsuspecting passersby. The boy identifies himself as “Stopthief,” but he remembers almost nothing about... Read Milkweed Summary

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Penelope Lively’s 1987 novel Moon Tiger is a work of historical fiction. Set primarily in England and Egypt during the 20th century, the novel is a frame story that joins protagonist Claudia Hampton on her deathbed as she reflects on the relationships, memories, and historical forces that shaped her life. The author was awarded the 1987 Booker Prize for the novel. Moon Tiger explores the subjective nature of memory, the difference between lived and linear... Read Moon Tiger Summary

Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut, is a World War II novel first published in 1961. Vonnegut’s third novel, it garnered little recognition when it was first released, and it wasn’t until Vonnegut’s success with Cat’s Cradle in 1963 and his breakout fifth novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), that Mother Night was revaluated as a powerful work of moral exploration by an author who would go on to become America’s leading satirist and who is now recognized as... Read Mother Night Summary

This guide is based on the first edition of Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, published in 2001 by Princeton University Press. Written by Jan Tomasz Gross, Neighbors is a critically acclaimed account of Poland’s role in the Holocaust. It inspired the 2012 film Aftermath, directed by Wladyslaw Pasikowski.Content Warning: The source material and this guide include discussions of antisemitism, war, and the Holocaust.On July 10, 1941, nearly two years after... Read Neighbors Summary

Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a memoir recounting the author’s experience in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald during the last two years of World War II. The book was published in France in 1958; a shortened English translation was published in the United States in 1960.In 1944, the 15-year old Wiesel, his father, mother, and sisters were deported from the village of Sighet in Hungary and interned at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration... Read Night Summary

Nisei Daughter recounts Monica Sone’s childhood in Seattle’s Japanese American community and her experience in the internment camps that housed residents of Japanese ethnicity between 1942 and 1946. The memoir, which has become a seminal text in Asian American studies, was first published in 1953 and then republished in 1979 and 2014, each time with an introduction that reframes the work in its context.The memoir begins with Sone’s realization that she is “a Japanese” when... Read Nisei Daughter Summary

The novel dramatizes thestruggles of twenty-five-year-old Ichiro Yamada as he returns home after two years spent in prison. Ichiro is a no-no boy, meaning that in response to the 1943 questionnaire entitled “Statement of U.S. Citizenship of Japanese American Ancestry,” he answered no to questions 27 and 28. These questions asked respondents first, if they would serve in the U.S. military whenever ordered and second, if they would forswear allegiance to the Emperor of Japan or... Read No-No Boy Summary

Anita Lobel is the author of No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War. First published in 1998 and a finalist for the National Book Award, the memoir details Lobel’s memories of growing up in Poland and how she survived World War II and the Holocaust. As the book follows Lobel from a child to a teen, it’s also a coming-of-age story and features themes about displacement and identity, as well as ideas like the differences... Read No Pretty Pictures Summary

Number the Stars is a 1989 middle-grade novel by Lois Lowry. A work of historical fiction, it focuses on the experiences of Annemarie Johansen, a 10-year-old Danish girl, living in Copenhagen during World War II. The book follows Annemarie and her family as they attempt to save their Jewish friends, the Rosens, from being sent to a Nazi concentration camp. The novel was critically acclaimed at the time of its release and won the 1990... Read Number the Stars Summary

Published in 2005, Once is a children’s historical fiction novel by Morris Gleitzman. Set in Poland during World War II, the story follows Felix, a 10-year-old Jewish boy being hidden from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage, as he embarks on a quest to find his parents. Gleitzman was inspired by the true experiences of the Polish-Jewish educator and author Janusz Korczak during the Holocaust. Korczak is the inspiration for the character Barney, who sacrifices... Read Once Summary

Once We Were Brothers is a Jewish historical fiction novel and legal thriller published in 2013 by the American author and attorney Ronald H. Balson. A finalist for the Harper Lee Award for Legal Fiction, the book tells the story of two young men on opposite sides of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland. It is the first entry in Balson’s Liam Taggart and Catherine Lockhart book series.Plot SummaryThe book is divided into three parts. Part... Read Once We Were Brothers Summary