Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Margaret (Meg) Kenyon's father left home in May of 1940 to fight the German army massing on the French border. Meg and her parents were forced to leave their home in Auxonne, near the German border and flee to their grandmere's farm in an area known as the Perche. 

Unfortunately, France surrendered six weeks after the invasion. The Perche is in the Occupied Zone, controlled by the Germans. This area includes French cities like Paris, Nantes and Bordeaux, as well as some of the best farmland in France. To the south is Free France, also called Vichy France. Meg's family home is near Auxonne, only fifty kilometers from the Forbidden Zone, an area the Germans intend to settle with German citizens.

Almost two years later, in Feb of 1942, Meg has not heard from her father in 657 days and she wonders if he's still alive. Today she has a job to do: to help the French resistance by supplying them with any information that can help.

Meg often goes to town to sell food on the black market and today she places some potatoes in her bag and covers them with a few school books. Before she leaves for town, Meg's mother tells her that she also has a few errands to run but she doesn't elaborate.

In town Meg goes to her usual abandoned building, once a flower shop to wait for her regular customers. After selling potatoes to a woman, a boy she doesn't know, an "inconnu" arrives and asks for food. He tells her his name is Jakob and that German soldiers have just arrived in town. 

As she's leaving, Meg sees the soldiers and knows they are in town to search for members of the resistance, the partisans. One of the Germans, Lieutenant Becker is a cruel and dangerous German. In a cafe, Meg sits, pretending she is studying, while listening to Becker. She learns he is searching for a "her" and a "him". Meg doesn't know who these people might be, so she decides to follow Becker when he leaves the cafe. But he quickly realizes she is following him and stops her to question and check her bag. Eventually he lets her continue her journey home.

Trained by a young partisan named Yvonne, Meg leaves a message in code behind a loose brick in a wall on the edge of the forest, warning them that the Nazis are conducting searches in the Perche. Returning to Grandmere's farm, Meg immediately notices the barn door ajar and blood on the snow. Meg discovers Captain Henry Stewart of the Royal Air Force has taken refuge in the barn. He's injured and asks Meg for help. She agrees despite her suspicions and brings him stew and rags for bandages.

While she and Grandmere wait for Meg's mother to return, Meg works on deciphering the last code in the jar of codes her papa left for her before the war. It is Meg's dream to work as a cryptologist in London, helping with the war effort. The last code, JAIMIE STAYED is difficult to solve.

Captain Stewart finds Meg's code journal hidden in the barn and questions her, warning her to burn it as it will incriminate her if the Germans find it. Stewart reveals that he did parachute out of a plane to meet up with Sylvie Kenyon a radio operator with the S.O.E.. As it turns out, Sylvie is Meg's mother. 

When Meg is called back into the house she finds Jakob, the boy she gave potatoes to earlier and her mother. Jakob tells her that the Nazis are conducting searches of all the homes, looking for a British spy. At this point, Captain Stewart enters revealing Meg's secret. In perfect French, he tells Jakob he was supposed to meet them but was injured. Sylvie tells Stewart that when she transmitted a message, the Nazis were able to locate her and she had to flee, never sending the message that he was injured. She tells Stewart that her radio was damaged. 

The next phase of Captain Stewart's mission was to involve himself and Jakob but it is obvious he is too injured to complete it. Meg and her family must hide all evidence of Captain Stewart's presence and hide him. Stewart is hidden beneath the floorboards of Grandmere's bed, while Meg and her mother try to clean up all evidence of their work for the partisans. At the last minute Meg throws her small journal into the fire.

Just before the arrival of the German's Meg's mother reveals the extent of her work for the resistance. She tells Meg that she "connects the partisans in the forest with the spy offices back in London." Her information helps them plan their secret missions. Meg's mother gives her a yellowed paper that Captain Stewart passed along to her. It appears to be written in code by Meg's father.

With the arrival of Lieutenant Becker, Meg pretends to be asleep in bed while Becker and his soldiers search their house. But when Becker finds Meg's half burned journal in the fireplace, he decides he will stay the night and question her in the morning. Luckily for Meg, that doesn't happen as Becker needs to leave. But his plans to return, result in Meg, her mother and Captain Stewart forming their own plans for Meg to leave.

Captain Stewart, who is with the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.), is too injured to complete his mission, that of escorting a family, the Durands into Spain. Albert Durand helped Meg's father get to a safe house from a German prison camp. Albert however, will not reveal Meg's father's location until he is safely in neutral territory. However to help his family, Meg's father gave Albert a letter which he passed onto Captain Stewart. Meg now has the letter but she will need to decipher it to learn the message her father has sent her. It is  up to Meg to lead the Durands to safety while also attempting to decode the message her father sent.

Discussion

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen is the latest novel in her series of World War II historical fiction. Set in occupied France during 1942, the story revolves around a young French girl with a knack for deciphering code, helping two German citizens flee the Nazis. Nielsen incorporates the use of codes by the partisans into her story, offering her readers the puzzle of a lengthy code Meg's father has left for her to decipher.

Meg is a determined, resourceful heroine who loves her country and wants to help defeat the Nazis. She doesn't want to cooperate in any way with the Nazis. In Paris, Meg struggles to understand the treatment of the French Jews. "A large sign pasted to a brick wall depicted a monstrous drawing of the Jewish people. A young couple passed it, their heads bowed down....My eyes crossed between them and the horrible drawing. That couple was no different than any of us, and I wondered how the other people here on the street couldn't see that. Maybe if we just looked at one another, if we stopped hating and pointing fingers of blame, maybe then we could stand together against the true enemies of France."

However, Meg finds herself challenged to see people as they are by Jakob. When she tells Jakob that she doesn't feel sorry for the Durands because they are German, Jakob confronts her belief that  "...everyone is the same, just because they come from the same place." Meg wants to see Jakob as a friend at this point, but she cannot. However, later on in their journey, Meg comes to realize that events are more complicated and that one cannot judge who is good or bad based on where they come from.  She learns that Jakob's parents were taken for hiding Jews, that Albert helped her father escape and that Liesel was forced into betraying them on their escape into Switzerland.

While Rescue is an exciting read, there are some weak areas in the plot. For example, Lieutenant Becker suspects, with good reason, that Meg and her mother are involved with the partisans. He has retrieved Meg's half burned journal from the fireplace and it is obvious it is a code book. He want to question Meg but remarkably, waits until morning after being told Meg needs her sleep. The Germans were never this accommodating. Meg is spared his questioning when Becker is suddenly called away the next morning. Becker leaves the farm without stationing a soldier behind to ensure that Meg and her mother do not flee. Not leaving a guard behind would have been very unlikely given the high flight risk that Meg and her mother would pose.

The story line is also becomes somewhat confusing when Meg leaves the "Durands" at Pole, after learning of the disappearance of her mother and grandmother. She travels back to her family home near Auxonne but this is never clearly stated. While Nielsen has provided her young readers with a map at the front of the novel, it would have been helpful to have Meg's journeys marked on this map.

Nielsen incorporates plenty of plot twists in the story: no one is who they seem to be, including Meg's mother and Jakob. The Durands are not a family but instead are two Germans who worked for the Nazis and who have changed sides. 

Overall, Rescue is a solid story that will capture the interest of middle grade readers and young teens. It has a suspenseful but happy ending. The back of the novel includes pages on Secret Codes and also on the Special Operations Executive.

Book Details:

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen
New York: Scholastic Press Inc.    2021
387 pp.