Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmut's story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times, to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason. When 16-year-old Helmut Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. Susan Campbell Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, Hitler Youth, and fleshed it out into thought-provoking novel.
All in all, a good addition to the series.A Newbery Honor Book author has written a powerful and gripping novel about a youth in Nazi Germany who tells the truth about Hitler. So we are glad to hear that he did stay in school after the events in the journal, and that he was offered a scholarship to Columbia University which prepared him for a career as a journalist specializing in unfair labor practices.
Finn is smart, and a success in school, even though he would prefer to be out on the streets earning money. From the journal, readers get an idea of unscrupulous landlords, of the lack of basics (no bathrooms or running water in the apartments), and the constant insecurity of working people.Īt the end of the journal, as happens in every book in this series, the author provides an epilogue that tells what becomes of the main characters. Unfortunately, the business he does get into-painting houses-involves dangerous chemicals and within months he is sick and unable to continue working.
A grandfather lives with them, as does the father, a man who yearns to have his own business. Finn's older sister works in a garment factory, and she brings piecework home for their mother (busy with young children) to sew there. The newsies at least could attend school during the day, as Finn does, and sell papers in the late afternoon and evening. Bartoletti says she wanted to tell the story of working children, as there were millions of them in the late 19th century. is on the strike of the newspaper boys in New York City, who were protesting unfair treatment by the newspapers that hired them to sell papers on the street. The focus of this fictional journal, from 1899. Retrieved from (Hardcover+Fiction).-a0105711108īARTOLETTI, Susan Campbell.
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