Book picks similar to
The Good Liar by Gregory Maguire


historical-fiction
fiction
childrens
france

Violins of Autumn


Amy McAuley - 2012
    Instead of running air raid drills like most girls her age, she lies about her age and trains to become a spy. Now known by her secret agent persona, Adele Blanchard, she finds herself parachuting over German-occupied France under the cover of darkness to join the secret Resistance movement. Prepared to die for her cause, Adele wasn't expecting to make a new best friend in her fellow agent or fall for a handsome American pilot. With the brutality of war ever present, can Adele dare to dream of a future where the world is at peace and she is free to live and love of her own accord?

Pocket Full of Seeds


Marilyn Sachs - 1973
    Then one awful day Nicole comes home from school to find her entire family gone. The Nazis who have taken them are still looking for her. Where can she hide? "A significant addition to the collection of children's books dealing with World War II".--The Boston Globe. An ALA Notable Book; a New York Times Outstanding Children's Book of the Year.

The Welsh Girl


Peter Ho Davies - 2007
    Young Esther Evans has lived her whole life within the confines of her remote mountain village. The daughter of a fiercely nationalistic sheep farmer, Esther yearns for a taste of the wider world that reaches her only through broadcasts on the BBC. Then, in the wake of D-day, the world comes to her in the form of a German POW camp set up on the outskirts of Esther's village. The arrival of the Germans in the camp is a source of intense curiosity in the local pub, where Esther pulls pints for both her neighbors and the unwelcome British guards. One summer evening she follows a group of schoolboys to the camp boundary. As the boys heckle the prisoners across the barbed wire fence, one soldier seems to stand apart. He is Karsten Simmering, a German corporal, only eighteen, a young man of tormented conscience struggling to maintain his honor and humanity. To Esther's astonishment, Karsten calls out to her. These two young people from worlds apart will be drawn into a perilous romance that calls into personal question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity. The consequences of their relationship resonate through the lives of a vividly imagined cast of characters: the drunken BBC comedian who befriends Esther, Esther's stubborn father, and the resentful young British "evacuee" who lives on the farm-even the German-Jewish interrogator investigating the most notorious German prisoner in Wales, Rudolf Hess. Peter Ho Davies has been hailed for his "all-encompassing empathy that is without borders" (Elle). That trancendent compassion shines through The Welsh Girl, a novel that is both thought-provoking and emotionally enthralling.

Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary 1939-1944


Aranka Siegal - 1981
    Upon the Head of the Goat is the winner of the 1982 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and a 1982 Newbery Honor Book.“This is a book that should be read by all those interested in the Holocaust and what it did to young and old.” —Isaac Bashevis Singer

Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust


Eve Bunting - 1980
    This unique introduction to the Holocaust encourages young children to stand up for what they think is right, without waiting for others to join them.Ages 6 and up.

The Goblin's Puzzle: The Adventures of a Boy With No Name and Two Girls Called Alice


Andrew S. Chilton - 2016
    All four are tangled up in a sinister plot to take over the kingdom, and together they must face kind monsters, a cruel magician, and dozens of deathly boring palace bureaucrats. They’re a ragtag bunch, but with strength, courage, and plenty of deductive reasoning, they just might outwit the villains and crack the goblin’s puzzle.

The Unvisibles (Anak-Anak Transparan)


Ian Whybrow - 2003
    Oliver is rowdy and loud and doesn't mind being in constant trouble one bit. Nicky is so quiet and self-effacing that he is nearly invisible. One day Oliver finds himself in desperate need of help from his next-door neighbor.

The Year the Maps Changed


Danielle Binks - 2020
    But that's another way maps lie, because it felt like the distance travelled was a whole lot further than that.'Sorrento, Victoria - 1999 Fred's family is a mess. Fred's mother died when she was six and she's been raised by her Pop and adoptive father, Luca, ever since. But now Pop is at the Rye Rehabilitation Centre recovering from a fall; Luca's girlfriend, Anika, has moved in; and Fred's just found out that Anika and Luca are having a baby of their own. More and more it feels like a land-grab for family and Fred is the one being left off the map.But even as the world feels like it's spinning out of control, a crisis from the other side of it comes crashing in. When 400 Kosovar-Albanian refugees arrive in the middle of the night to be housed at one of Australia's 'safe havens' on an isolated headland not far from Sorrento, their fate becomes intertwined with the lives of Fred and her family, as she navigates one extraordinary year that will change them all.A middle-grade coming-of-age story about the bonds of family and the power of compassion for fans of The Bone Sparrow, Wolf Hollow and The Thing About Jellyfish.

The Good War


Todd Strasser - 2021
    Peterson is starting a video game club where the students will playing The Good War, a new game based on World War II.They are divided into two teams: Axis and Allies, and they will be simulating a war they know nothing about yet. Only one team will win. But what starts out as friendly competition, takes an unexpected turn for the worst when an one player takes the game too far.Can an afterschool club change the way the students see eachother...and how they see the world?By using a gaming lens to explore the students' entr�e to prejudice and radicalization, he succeeds in lending immediacy and accessibility to his cautionary tale.--Kirkus Reviews

The Charmed Children of Rookskill Castle


Janet Fox - 2016
    The castle is a temporary boarding school for children escaping the Blitz, but soon it’s clear there is something terribly wrong. There are clues hinting that a spy is in the house, and there are undeniable signs of a sinister magic. When the children in the castle’s temporary boarding school begin disappearing one by one, it’s a race against the clock for twelve-year-old Kat Bateson, her two younger siblings, and their new best friend.

The Gremlins


Roald Dahl - 1943
    In Dahl's book, the gremlins' motivation for sabotaging British aircraft is revenge of the destruction of their forest home, which was razed to make way for an aircraft factory. The principal character in the book, Gus, has his Hawker Hurricane fighter destroyed over the English Channel by a gremlin, but is able to convince the gremlins as they parachute into the water that they should join forces against a common enemy, Hitler and the Nazis, rather than fight each other. Source: WikipediaWith full-page color illustrations and with several black and white illustrations by the Disney artists throughout.This was Roald Dahl's first book and preceded the British publication by several months. The story was optioned by Disney and was intended to be made into an animated film, but it was never produced. A note on the copyright page states: "The RAF Benevolent Fund will receive the author's share of the proceeds from the sale of this book." Dahl's next children's book, James and the Giant Peach, published eighteen years later.

Dick Sands the Boy Captain (The Extraordinary Voyages, #17)


Jules Verne - 1878
    This picture of the wilds of Africa, its adventures and its dangers, the savage hunting both of beasts and men, has always been a favorite among Verne's readers. It contains no marvels, no inventions, but merely, amid stirring scenes and actions seeks to convey two truthful impressions. One is the traveler's teaching the geographical information, the picture of Africa as explorers, botanists, and zoologists have found it. The other is the moral lesson of the awful curse of slavery, its brutalizing, horrible influence upon all who come in touch with it, and the absolutely devastating effect it has had upon Africa itself.

Nowhere to Run: A Second World War refugee's diary, 1938-1943


Carol Drinkwater - 2012
    Two girls from very different backgrounds, but the horrors of the Nazi occupation will bring them dramatically together. Becky's family have been forced to flee Warsaw for France and are offered a home by Claudette's father. The friendship between the two girls blossoms, but Becky's safe haven is short lived as the Nazis edge ever nearer the French border. Her family are soon on the move again. But even in the so-called Free Zone there are murmurings that an invasion may be imminent. Will Becky survive the war to see Claudette again?

The Klipfish Code


Mary Casanova - 2007
    Twelve-year-old Marit has decided to take action, despite her grandfather’s warnings. But will her plan work? Can she really complete her part of this secret code? And even if she can, would it make any difference to the Resistance?As this novel reveals what Norwegian people did to preserve their dignity and freedoms, it uncovers a startling statistic: the German secret police systematically rounded up one teacher in ten and sent them to concentration camps for their refusal to teach Nazi propaganda to Norwegian schoolchildren. Set on an island of sturdy fishing trawlers and brightly painted homes, with smells of kelp and salt water, here is a riveting novel about risks taken, secrets kept, and, always, questions about whom to trust.

Chance: Escape from the Holocaust


Uri Shulevitz - 2020
    By turns dreamlike and nightmarish, this heavily illustrated account of determination, courage, family loyalty, and the luck of coincidence is a true publishing event."