Island War by Patricia Reilly Giff

Island War opens in 1941. Europe is at war with Nazi Germany while Japan is preparing to attack the United States as well as several Asian countries.

In a small town in Connecticut, Isabel (Izzy) is busy packing her suitcase to travel to an island off the coast of Alaska. However, her mother, a bird watcher, isn't keen to go despite the fact that Izzy's father had made the plans and gotten their tickets. A little over two months ago, Izzy's father was killed in a car accident. Now Izzy is keen for a change of scene, to go to the island, to watch the birds and for the snow and the wind. Her Gram convinces Izzy's mother to travel to the island that Izzy's father spent so much time on.

Fourteen-year-old Matt loves rowing out on Long Island Sound. One day Matt learns from his father that the two of them will be travelling to an island that is part of the Aleutians, an island chain off the coast of Alaska. Matt's father feels they need some time together, but Matt doesn't want to go. He's not close to his father who is always away and who always seems annoyed when he comes home.

Izzy and Matt first run into one another on the boat taking them to the island. Izzy, running around on deck, trips over Matt who is sitting against the railing. Izzy recognizes Matt as a boy from school who is a few grades ahead of her. But their interaction is not friendly. On the island, Izzy and her mother live in a wooden cottage with three rooms. Izzy and her mother are welcomed by the women on the island. Izzy makes friends with a girl named Maria. Remembering her father's stories about a cave where he could watch kittiwakes and cormorants, Izzy asks Maria if she knows where the cave might be located. Maria tells her there are many caves on the island. Instead she's more interested in whether Izzy brought books with her. But unknown to Maria, Izzy finds reading difficult.

Izzy finds herself attending a school with only five students including Matt. Their teacher Mrs. Weio tells them about the legends associated with the island. However, outside of school the students are more interested in the threat of war coming to the islands which belong to the United States. Japan lies only a thousand miles to the southwest.

Meanwhile Matt is preoccupied with thoughts about home. An older boy, Michael shows Matt a baidarka, a single person kayak with a sea lion skin stretched across the frame. Matt's first try in the kayak is scary as he struggles to learn how to use it and it overturns. However Matt soon masters the kayak, travelling along the coast and also how to right himself. But one day Matt's father tells him he cannot go out in the kayak. Japan has bombed Hawaii and sunk half the American fleet. The day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Izzy and the other islanders learn that America has declared war on Japan. While Mrs. Weio believes they will all be evacuated before war comes to their island, others are not so sure.

Winter passes in to the spring of 1942. One day an unknown ship appears on the horizon. Some believe it might the American navy but after church, Izzy and others discover that Japanese soldiers have arrived on the island. The soldiers force everyone into the church while they go through the village looting and damaging the homes. Eventually Izzy and her mother along with the other residents are allowed back into their damaged homes. The next morning Matt, his father and the other men are ordered to fish while everyone else remains in the village. Every day the men bring home fish which is divided up. The Japanese soldiers also string a wire fence around the village homes, making them prisoners.

In September, Matt figures out a way to get past the wire fence and get to his kayak hidden in a little cove. Each night he goes out to the cove and paddles his kayak. It is Maria, who is recovering from scarlet fever who clues Izzy into what Matt is doing. Watching one night, Izzy sees him and tries to follow but is caught by a guard. Then later in the week, Matt's father reveals that he knows about Matt's nightly trips to the kayak but also that he has learned that they are to be taken to a prison camp on the Japanese mainland either that night or in the morning. Matt's father wants him to leave tonight for his kayak and that he will meet him later on with a two man kayak that he has hidden in the back of the shed. He also tells Matt that he really does love him and that he is proud of his resourcefulness.

However things do not go as planned. Matt leaves for the hidden kayak as planned but Izzy also manages to get out of the camp. On Thor Hill she sees a line of people boarding a ship, one of whom looks like Matt's father. Izzy loses her glasses but makes it back to the village only to discover that her mother and everyone else in the village have left. Her mother's note tells her she has been taken to Japan. Matt too discovers the villagers gone. Each at first believe they are alone until they discover they are the only ones left on the island and must work together if they are to survive the coming winter.

Discussion

Reilly Giff uses an unnamed Aleutian island as the setting for a remarkable survival story set during World War II. In A Note at the back of her novel, Reilly Giff indicates that her "story is loosely based on the island of Attu, the farthest west in the chain of the Aleutian Islands..." The Aleutians are an island chain stretching some 1900 km into the Pacific Ocean, partly belonging to the United States with some islands also part of Russia.  War came to the Aleuts on June 3, 1942 when two islands, Attu and Kiska were occupied by Japanese troops. They were considered strategically important by both the United States and Japan in the war as they would allow either country a route of attack on enemy territory. The Americans did offer to evacuate the residents of Attu prior to the Japanese invasion, but they refused. They were eventually deported to the a prison camp in Japan.

The occupation of an unknown Aleutian island becomes the backdrop for a story about survival and  working together with someone you don't like. Izzy and Matt are two young people who find themselves visiting the Aleutians and then thrust into the war. The two main characters, who tell the story in alternating chapters, are a study in contrasts. Izzy had come eagerly to the island with her mother who observes birds, while Matt has come reluctantly with his father who has some unknown job. While Izzy is close to her mother, Matt feels distant from his father, who appears critical of his young teenage son.

Initially both Izzy and Matt believe they are alone on the island but soon discover they share the fate of being abandoned with the one person they least like. Their mutual dislike stems from a misunderstanding on the boat coming to the island, when Izzy tripped over Matt's legs. Each believes the other deliberately did something to them.

Izzy, least prepared to survive, is willing to work with Matt but Matt wants nothing to do with her. When he discovers Izzy is also left behind, Matt's first reaction is "You!....In my house! Eating our food. I should have known."  He accuses her of being a thief and then tells her that she has to fend for herself, that he doesn't ever want to see her around his house again.  Matt continues to be mean towards Izzy even when she warns him that there are four enemy soldiers still on the island.

Despite being older than Izzy, Matt is immature. After he's injured, he wonders, "How had this happened to me? Did I feel sorry for myself? I did. And why not." He ungraciously complains about the bandages being pink, not recognizing Izzy's huge sacrifice for him. After all she has done for him, Matt appears to intend to abandon Izzy, only to lose his beloved kayak. Eventually though Matt does realize that he owes a debt to Izzy, "I thought of all she had done these long months. How could I have made it without her?"

Izzy is a resourceful, intelligent character who recognizes that in order to survive she and Matt must work together. Izzy shows herself to be patient and optimistic in the face of adversity. In this regard she is portrayed as the very opposite of Matt. She is motivated by the words of the teacher she never liked back home in Connecticut, "You could do anything, Izzy, if only you set your mind to it." 
Izzy finds Matt mean and self-absorbed. "How could one person think he was so perfect? And he'd gotten most of it wrong anyway." Despite Matt treating Izzy badly, she tells him about a cave that might be safer than staying in the abandoned village and she cares for him when he injures his knee. She is able to sacrifice something that she loves dearly, her pink velvet party dress, to use for bandages for Matt's injured knee.

Ultimately, Matt and Izzy do become friends, apologizing to one another for their misinterpreting of each other's actions. It is a friendship forged in adversity that appears to outlast their experiences on the island. Both characters learn about themselves; Izzy that she can achieve what she sets her mind to and that she has an inner strength, Matt that he is very much like the father he struggles to understand.

Island War  with its unique setting, believable characters and many themes, will be enjoyed by younger readers who have an interest in survival fiction.

Book Details:

Island War by Patricia Reilly Giff
New York: Holiday House    2018
203 p

Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes

Dean Hughes' Soldier Boys is the tragic story of two young men who enlist to fight for their countries in World War II. It is a gritty, realistic account of the horror of war told in alternating narratives.

The novel opens a week after Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, unleashing the German blitzkrieg. Ten year old Dieter Hedrick, a member of the Jungfolk, is intimidated into jumping into a icy pond by seventeen-year-old Hans Keller, a Scharfuhrer with the Hitler Youth. Dieter is both afraid of the water and ashamed to be seen naked by the older boys, yet he wants to be complimented by Hans, who is funny and fierce, and whom he idolizes. Dieter is thrilled by Hitler's speeches and the victories achieved by the German army, the Wehrmacht. "Dieter thrilled to the words hoping that the day would come when he could prove himself the way these valiant soldiers were doing." Dieter sees Hitler as standing-up for Germany.  However, Dieter's father is not impressed by Hitler as he fears years of war.  To Dieter his father seems weak and he is ashamed. Although he's reluctant, Dieter jumps into the cold water of the pond, not once but twice. He believes that given the chance, he will go to war and make his family proud.

The story jumps ahead to December, 1941. Fifteen-year-old Spencer (Spence) Morgan is a Mormon living just outside Brigham City, Utah with his mother, father, his nineteen-year-old brother Robert, his sister Louise, and his eleven-year old brother, Lloyd. His family runs an orchard, growing peaches, cherries and apricots. Robert is determined to sign up to go fight the Japanese.  Spence who is crushing on LuAnn Crowther, tries to impress her by stating that when his time comes, he too will sign up.

The narrative jumps ahead two years to November, 1943. Spence who is sixteen, is flunking high school and he's determined to enlist. But his father is not happy, telling Spence that he is not mature enough and that he suspects Spence wants to prove something to LuAnn. Although she and Spence did date a bit, they parted ways and LuAnn has been dating Dennis Stevens and it is rumoured they plan to marry when she graduates high school. In the end, Spence's father relents and signs his papers. Spence promises his dad he will turn to God for support and that he won't take extra chances. When Spence meets LuAnn he tells her he plans to join the paratroopers. Later on his older sister Louise confronts him, stating that he's only joining "to show-up LuAnn" which Spencer vehemently denies.

Spence passes the intelligence test and is sent to Georgia for basic training and jump school for the Airborne to become a paratrooper. There he meets Ted Draney from Colorado and the two become fast friends, talking each other out of dropping out of paratrooper school. They spend the next thirteen weeks preparing for their first jump and eventually make it through paratrooper school. After spending time in a camp on Salisbury Plain, west of London, Spence and Ted who are part of the 17th Airborne Infantry Division, are being sent to the Ardennes Forest. Hitler undertook a surprise attack across the Belgian and Luxembourg borders, penetrating deep into the Ardennes Forest. This bulge in the American defense lines has become known as the Battle of the Bulge. The day after Christmas Spence's battalion gets dropped off closer to the front. He's about to get his first taste of war.

In September of 1944, Dieter Hedrick is now fifteen and working with crews of Hitler Youth, digging antitank trenches near the Mosel River in Luxembourg, along the Siegfied Line. With the Allies pushing out of Normandy and across France, this is Germany's attempt to stop them from invading Germany. Dieter is now a Scharfuhrer, having distinguished himself during weapons training camp. He was part of an antiaircraft battery in Augsburg. Dieter soon sees death when one of his crew is killed by aircraft fire, and a deserter is tied up and shot. To reward his efforts, Dieter along with many other young boys is taken to a train car where he meets Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments and Hitler himself, who awards the boys the War Service Cross, First Class. Filled with Nazi fervor, Dieter becomes determined to enlist, hounding Lieutenant Feiertag. He gets what he wants and is shipped out to the front, a member "in a company of soldiers in the Forty-seventh Panzer Corps, part of the Fifteenth Army." There he meets Colonel Schaefer who challenges everything Dieter has been told about war, Germany and Hitler and the reason he's fighting.

Discussion

Soldier Boys is a tragic story that portrays how the idealization of war and military propaganda draws young people in, where they are eventually confronted with its horrific reality. The book follows the paths of two young men from two countries at war - Germany and America as they become soldiers. Both boys are under-aged and immature, enlisting for the wrong reasons. One is heavily propagandized and brainwashed, patriotic to a fault; the other naïve and hoping to prove his worth on the battlefield.

Dieter enlists out of patriotic emotions that are the result of indoctrination by the Nazis. He believes Germany has the high ground in the war and is simply protecting itself from America, Russia and Poland. When he is ten years old Dieter listens to "Hitler's fine speech to his people" and he believes that Poland had provoked Germany into attacking. Dieter views Hitler as someone "standing up for the Fatherland, making it a great nation again."

However, Dieter's views clash with his father, a veteran of the Great War, who never talks about "the brave German boys". Instead his father spoke about the reality of war: the trenches, the mud, the food and being one of the lucky ones to survive. Dieter believes his father may have been a coward, given that he shows no evidence of having done anything great. Eventually over the next few years, Dieter works tirelessly in the Hitler Youth and gets himself sent to the front in 1944. By this time the tide of war has turned against Germany, morale is low, and the Wehrmacht that Dieter loves is armed with the very old and the very young.

Dieter's "idea of an honorable death had always been glorious and clean." However when he sees another Hitler Youth die a gruesome death, he is forced to confront the reality of death. The truth about the war is revealed though by Schaefer who tells him: "You believe all these lies. You know nothing. We attacked London early on in the beginning. We wiped out Warsaw. We're as much to blame as anyone for all this killing of children and women and little boys." Dieter's response is to not believe Schaefer and to consider him a traitor. Schaefer warns him that the war is already lost, "Germany has already lost the war. The Russians have won in the east...Don't die for that pig Hitler." He tells Dieter to try to save his own life. He also reveals the truth behind the Nazi propaganda about the Jews, that millions are being gassed. Even though Dieter is sickened by this he still refuses to believe Schaefer, telling him he's a coward.

As they face their last battle, Dieter finds himself reconsidering death and heroism. "He knew that a hero shouldn't fear death, but where was the glory in dying for his country and never knowing it --just lying on the battlefield, gray and hard as ice? It was nice to think of a statue in his village, at least a placard with his name on it, but it wouldn't happen, he supposed, and even if it did, what would it mean to him, once he was one of those frozen corpses?"

Spencer's narrative is not as well developed and his reason for enlisting seems superficial. Spencer's father hopes he will be a missionary and preach, however Spencer isn't interested. Instead, his reasons for enlisting are to prove himself to LuAnn Crowther, the girl who rejected him. Spencer believes he is not good looking; he has buckskin-colored hair, freckles and crooked teeth. Spencer, like every other boy wanted LuAnn to be his girl, but after dating for a short time they each went their separate ways and she's now dating a wealthy boy named Dennis Stevens. He believes that LuAnn can't really see the kind of man he will be. "He was no coward. LuAnn would know, when the time came, what kind of man he could be." After enrolling Spencer believes that LuAnn pities him and he is hopeful he will return as a hero. Spencer's father recognizes his reason for wanting to join, yet still signs his papers.

Like Dieter, Spencer's view of the military is highly idealized. He sees the respect paratroopers get and so he becomes determined to get into Airborne training. When he's finished his training he wants to go home so LuAnn could see the man he's become but that doesn't happen. Eventually he's sent as an infantryman into The Battle of the Bulge. War is very different from what Spencer imagined. "He didn't understand any of this. He had seen war in his head so many times, imagined it, but this was all wrong. It was digging and waiting, with guns miles away blowing people up. How was he supposed to be brave against something so big, too far off, to face and fight?"

In the heat of the battle, with his best friend dead as well as many other soldiers, Spencer is sick with the realization of what war really is. "And suddenly he was furious. He hadn't known it would be like this, hadn't understood what he was getting into when he had signed up. Some idiot had sent the company down that hill, sacrificed them for no good reason. Who was running this war? Did they know what they were doing? Did anyone even care that Ted had died for nothing?"

Refusing to accept the norms of war, that you simply let the enemy die, when Spencer hears the cries of a young wounded German soldier he knows he has to act. "What would he want someone to do, he asked himself, if his own little brother were the one down there?" In the end his act of heroism is remembered, but he's not there to witness it. Spencer's heroic act is not what he thought it would be - the killing in battle of another soldier. Ironically, he loses his life trying to save the life of an enemy soldier. It is an act Spencer's father knows the people of Brigham City will not understand.

Hughes captures the essence of war, the horror, the fear, the human cost, the waste, that comes along with it through the eyes of two young boys. Soldier Boys asks us to consider the cost of war to those who become soldiers. It demonstrates how the propaganda of war is used to deceive people into believing war is glamorous and honourable. In the end, there are no winners.

Soldier Boys is a short, quick novel that offers plenty of themes for readers to consider.

Book Details:

Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes
Toronto: Atheneum Books for Young Readers    2015
194 pp.