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ASK! about Fiction

Here are some fiction title recommendations where characters have braved through wars:

1) Title: Heroes don’t run: A novel of the Pacific War
Author: Harry Mazer
Call number:Y English MAZ

Abstract: “To honor his father who died during the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor, seventeen-year-old Adam eagerly enlists in the Marines in 1944, survives boot camp, and faces combat on the tiny island of Okinawa.”

2) Title: The Girls They Left Behind
Author: Bernice Thurman Hunter
Call number: Y English HUN

Abstract: “Drawn from the author’s memories of being a teenager in World War II, a novel of the life of a seventeen-year-old girl named Beryl tells of daily life in 1943 Toronto and the lonely world of the home front as the girls are left behind to do their part inthe war effort and wait for the boy’s return.”

3) Title: A Boy No More
Author: Harry Mazer
Call number: Y English MAZ

Abstract: “After his father is killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Adam, his mother, and sister are evacuated from Hawaii to California, where he must deal with his feelings about the war, Japanese internment camps, his father, and his own identity.”

4) Title: Milkweed: A Novel
Author: Jerry Spinelli
Call number: Y English SPI

Abstract: “Captures the hardships and cruelty of life in the ghettos of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of World War II, through the eyes of a Jewish orphan who must use all his wits and courage to survive unimaginable events and circumstances.”

5) Title: Tomorrow, When the War Began
Author: John Marsden
Call number: Y English MAR

Abstract: “Seven Australian teenagers return from a camping trip in the bush to discover that their country has been invaded and they must hide to stay alive.”

6) Title: Under a War-torn Sky
Author: L.M. Elliott
Call number: Y English ELL

Abstract: “After his plane is shot down by Hitler’s Luftwaffe, nineteen-year-old Henry Forester of Richmond, Virginia, strives to walk across occupied France, with the help of the French Resistance, in hopes of rejoining his unit.”

7) Title:The Power of One
Author: Bryce Courtenay
Call number: English COU

Abstract: “An outcast in pre-World War II South Africa, young Peekay learns the power of self-reliance through the pain of the loneliness he experiences.”

8) Title:Run, boy, Run
Author: Uri Orlev
Call number: J English ORL

Abstract: “Based on the true story of a nine-year-old boy who escapes the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive throughout the war in the Nazi-occupied Polish countryside.”

Source: Novelist, last accessed on 22/08/07.

Please use our online catalogue at www.nlb.gov.sg to check for availability in library holdings.

Contributed by Chan Wai Ling, Librarian, Public Library Services

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