The Night War

This well-paced novel by Bradley (Fighting Words), set in 1942 Nazi-occupied France, poses thoughtful questions about religious divides and parallels through the experiences of 12-year-old Miriam Schreiber, a German Jew who fled Berlin for Paris with her parents after Kristallnacht. When all the Jews in her neighborhood are rounded up, Miri is separated from her parents and escapes with two-year-old neighbor Nora. Saved by a Catholic nun, the children are sent to Chenonceaux, where the Chateau de Chenonceau straddles the border of occupied France and French-controlled Vichy. Nora is given to a Catholic family, while Miri—pretending to be Christian and going by Marie—is sent to a convent school, where she discovers that two nuns are secretly helping to smuggle Jews across the border. Suffering from fear and anxiety and plagued by guilt for choices she believes she failed to make to save her mother and Nora’s father, Miri—aided by a mysterious, imperious elderly woman—takes on risky responsibilities. Miri’s highly credible emotions and actions make for a deeply sympathetic character facing increasingly dangerous and suspenseful circumstances; secondary characters are satisfyingly complex. All characters present as white; several are Jewish. A historical note concludes. Ages 9–12. (Apr.)