The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History by Robert Edsel

Robert Edsel's The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History is a book for young adults and older children focusing on a group of eleven men and one woman who were part of the Monuments Men, a group of  soldiers from American and Great Britain whose goal was to preserve the art treasures of Western Europe during World War II.

Adolf Hitler saw himself as a gifted artist, one whose genius was denied when he was refused admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria, back in 1907. He believed this unjust decision was made by Jewish jurors. He considered the only real art to be of German origin while art created by masters like Picasso was "degenerate." When Hitler came to power in Germany in the 1930's he had the works of many modern masters including Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas and Henri Matisse to be removed from German galleries. The art was either traded, sold or destroyed.

During a visit to Italy in 1938,  a tour of the art-filled rooms of the Pitti Palace and Uffizi Gallery inspired Hitler to build a museum filled with Europe's art treasures. The museum, would be located in his hometown of Linz, Austria and the art would come from the countries he planned to conquer.

The theft of art began almost immediately with the beginning of hostilities. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Nazis raided the private collections of Austrian Jews, facilitated by new laws that prohibited Jews from owning private property. With the invasion of Poland in September, 1939, the Nazi's continued their theft of art treasures. They stole the Veit Stoss Altarpiece a Gothic altarpiece from Saint Mary's Basilica, and a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci from the Czartoryski Museum. As the Nazis overran the Netherlands, France and Belgium, the looting intensified, again aided byIt was facilitated by the Nazis enacting laws that stripped the Jewish population of their rights to own property, meaning any art treasures could be confiscated.

The Monuments Men was a new unit that was tasked with saving the art treasures of Europe as the Allies drove the Nazis out of cities and towns. It was the inspiration of art conservator, George Stout who had spent years working on how to protect works of art and other cultural treasures during war. Stout's idea was to have teams of "cultural preservation officers" who would follow troops as areas were liberated. The Monuments Men made up the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section (MFAA) of the Civil Affairs division of the Western Allied armies and were chosen by the Roberts Commission. George Stout was eventually recruited to lead the Monuments Men in northern Europe but in fact, the first Monuments Man was Captain Mason Hammond who was sent to Italy when the Allied invasion began. 

Serving in Italy for the MFAA were Captain Deane Keller a portrait painter and professor at Yale and Second Lieutenant Fred Hartt, an art historian. In Northern Europe, George L. Stout an art conservator at Harvard, Captain Robert Posey an architect and military man, Captain Walker Hancock a sculptor, Private First Class Lincoln Kirstein, Major Ronald Edmund Balfour a lecturer at Cambridge University, Private Harry Ettlinger a German Jew who emigrated to the U.S., Captain Walter Hauchthausen an architect, Second Lieutenant James J. Rorimer curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,and Rose Valland Custodian of the Jeu d Paume Museum in Paris.

By late September 1943, Benito Mussolini, leader of Fascist Italy had been removed and the war now shifted to driving the Germans out of Italy. "The war was now going to be fought in a country that contained millions of works of art, monuments and churches, placing some of the greatest masterpieces of Western civilization at risk of being destroyed." The Monuments Men would have an unbelievably difficult job of tracking and recovering any missing treasures.

When Deane Keller arrived in Italy, a country he had visited years before he was shocked at the devastation and what the Italian people had suffered. The Allies were working their way north through Italy and a first objective was Naples. The way north to Naples was through the Liri Valley which the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino overlooked. Heavy bombing by the Allies had pulverized the abbey but it was possible to rebuild it.

In June, 1944, Monuments Men Lieutenant Perry Cott, British Captain Humphrey Brooke and Lieutenant Fred Hartt arrived in Rome. Their inspections determined that the art in the Vatican was safe, as "were the treasures of Brera Picture Gallery in Milan, the Accademia in Venice, the Borghese Gallery in Rome, and those from many of the nation's most important churches, which Pope Pius XII had allowed to be stored for safekeeping within the Vatican's walls."

Joined by Lieutenant Colonel Ernest DeWald, director of the MFAA in Italy, they began investigating the status of art belonging to museums in Naples which were supposedly delivered to Rome by the Hermann Goring Tank Division. However, two trucks worth of art disappeared and Cott and DeWald soon determined that "seventeen works of art from Naples and the ancient site of Pompeii were missing", including "The Blind Leading the Blind" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. There was no doubt that this was a planned theft and Dewald and Cott were certain the art had been moved to Germany.

Maesta

On July 4, 1944, Deane Keller arrived in Siena Italy a day after its liberation by the Fifth Army.German commander Generalfeldmarschal Albert Kesselting had declared Siena an open city, meaning that during the German retreat from the city, the Allies would not attack. On July 8, Keller visited the Bishop's Palace in Mensanello, eighteen miles outside Siena. There in the Bishop's Palace, which was being used as a makeshift first aid station, Keller was directed to two large wooden crates. Inside one he found Duccio di Buoninsegna's Madonna and Child, a panel of the Maesta that formed the high altarpiece of the Siena Cathedral. Forty other paintings had also been hidden in the palace chapel.

Meanwhile as the German's retreated to the Gothic Line, they withdrew to Florence, the capital of Tuscany and a city renowned for its rich artistic and cultural history. Second Lieutenant Fred Hartt arrived in Florence in late July, 1944 to assess the damage to the city's "magnificent churches, beautiful bridges and irreplaceable works of art." He wanted to know the location of the city's art treasures; had they been moved back into the city or were they still in the villas hidden. Several days later Hartt learned that the British had found an art repository containing masterpieces from two of the city's museums, the Uffizi Gallery and the Palatine Gallery, in a major battlezone just outside of Florence. Hartt travelled to the art repository, the Castle of Montegufoni. On August 1, Hartt accompanied by BBC Radio correspondent Wynford Vaughan-Thomas and Major Eric Linklater of the British Royal Engineeers arrived at Montegufoni. There he found an astonishing collection of works from Raphael, Ruben, Giotto, Botticelli and many others. At Montegufoni, Cesare Fasola, the librarian of the Uffizi Gallery revealed that the Germans had stolen hundreds of masterpieces from the Uffizi and Pitti Palace museums.

Hartt arrived in Florence on August 13. There he met Giovanni Poggi, the Florentine superintendent and Dr. Ugo Procacci, an official of the Tuscan museums. They provided Hartt a list of thirty-eight villas acting as art repositories. Procacci recounted to Hartt how the German's destroyed all of Florence's famous bridges except the Ponte Vecchio. Although the bridge was spared, the Germans  demolished the medieval towers and buildings surrounding the bridge, many dating back to Dante's time. Hartt's investigations in Florence of the thirty-eight repositories in Tuscany revealed that on orders of Colonel Metzner the German military commander of Florence, and SS Colonel Alexander Langsdorff, head of the Kunstschutz operation in Italy, hundreds of art treasures had been stolen. He listed 529 paintings, 162 works of sculpture including those from the Bargello Museum which had housed  "the most important collection of Gothic and Renaissance sculpture in the world, including masterpieces by Michelangelo and Donatello" as missing.

In Paris Monuments Man Jim Rorimer arrived on August 25 to find the Louvre Museum empty. The Mona Lisa and the Louvre's signature piece, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a 2 B.C. Greek sculpture were gone as was everything else. Jacques Jaujard, Director of the National Museums of France explained to Rorimer that all of the art treasures were taken to countryside chateaux in thirty-seven convoys. However, the private Jewish-owned collections such as those from Rothschild, Rosenberg, and David-Weill were systematically looted, with as many as  twenty-thousand pieces  moved to Germany. These collections included works by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Van Gogh and Picasso.

The city of Pisa is located fifty miles west of Florence on the Arno River which divides it. Unlike Florence, Pisa had been heavily bombed. On September 2, Deane Keller entered the rubble-filled city.  The heart of the city is the Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) which was comprised of "...the piazza and its duomo (cathedral), battistero (baptistery), campanile (bell tower - known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa), and camposanto (cemetery)". Although the duoma and battistero had sustained some damage, the Camposanto Monumentale, the city's famed cemetery was destroyed. Constructed in 1278, the Camposanto's walls were covered with vibrant frescoes painted by 14th and 15th century artists. Due to shelling, the Camposanto's wooden A-frame, lead-covered roof and burned and collapsed, breaking the frescoes into millions of pieces. A call to Brigadier General Edgar Hume's office resulted in the general and the archbishop of Pisa visiting the Camposanto. A temporary roof made of tarpaulin and tar paper protected the damaged building and the remaining frescoes and allowed for repair work to begin.

Michelangelo's Madonna

On September 16, 1944, British Major Ronald Balfour entered the town of Bruges in Belgium with the First Canadian Army. Missing from The Church of Our Lady was its centerpiece, Michelangelo's Madonna, a "...nearly life-sized masterpiece, carved out of white marble in 1504, when the Florentine master was twenty-nine years old." The sculpture was removed from the church where it had been for the past 440 years. Reverend Rene Deschepper told Balfour how the Germans removed the statue along with "eleven valuable paintings that had hung inside the church for centuries." The theft of the Michelangelo Bruges Madonna was planned but Deschepper had no idea where it was taken.

Even as the Germans were driven back they continued to loot. In November, 1944, Monuments Man Captain Walker Hancock, in Aachen Germany learned that "the Gothic silver-gilt bust of Charlemagne and the eleventh-century jewel-encrusted processional Cross of Lothair" had been taken further into Germany.

As the Allies drove the Germans north, across Western Europe and back towards Berlin, the Germans continued to loot, hiding their art treasures in salt mines and caves. However, the  Monuments Men had little to go on, only rumours and hearsay.  Would they ever recover the thousands of pieces of art stolen from private Jewish-owned collections? Would they ever locate Michelangelo's Madonna or the missing treasures from the Uffizi and Pitti museums? Their tips would come from the most unlikely of sources in the most unexpected ways.

Discussion

The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History tells the story of a select few members of the Monuments Men who worked to find and return some of the Western world's greatest art treasures after they had been stolen and hidden by the Nazis during their occupation of Europe. In fact, as Edsel points out in his Epilogue, there were over 350 Monuments Men from fourteen nations including America, France, Holland, Belgium and the British Commonwealth who served from 1943 to 1951, to recover the thousands of pieces of art stolen during the war.

Edsel begins his account by providing readers with some of the backstory of Adolf Hitler and how his obsession with art led to the theft of hundreds of thousands of art treasures not only from the national art collections of various European countries they conquered but also from private art collections, especially those of Jewish collectors in Europe.

Readers are introduced over a few chapters to the Monuments Men, artists, conservators and lecturers from America and Britain, who took time out of their lives to undertake the risky task of tracking down the stolen art treasures of Western Europe. Although they believed that men's lives were more important than the artwork, they felt strongly in their mission. The Monuments Men believed they were fighting to save their cultural heritage. As Edsel writes, "They could not imagine living in a dark and ugly world without these things of importance and beauty that have for centuries defined who we are as a civilization."

The story of the Monuments Men is told through the alternating narratives of the various Monuments Men in chronological order beginning with the Italian campaign in 1943. Edsel sets the stage initially by focusing on the Monuments Men  and their arrival in Europe and Italy. Unsure of what to expect, they find some art repositories and collections safe and others raided or missing. The Monuments Men begin with the obvious, checking on collections in the Vatican (they are safe) and in the Louvre Museum (hidden due to the amazing foresight of  Jacques Jaujard). As the Monuments Men race to discover where the Germans have hidden the stolen art, readers come to comprehend not only the incredible devastation brought about by the war (for example in the destruction of the City of Lo or the bridges of Florence) but the potential for the destruction of European culture as well. Edsel focuses on several significant pieces of art, Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna, the Ghent Altarpiece, and the Florentine art treasures, to name a few. At first the story is difficult to follow as the narrative jumps from location to location, but the chronology begins to fit together, providing readers with some understanding of the incredible task facing the Monuments Men.

Edsel includes many black and white photographs of the important artwork stolen by the Germans, such as the Bruges Madonna, the Ghent Altarpiece and the Maesta. As well there are numerous historical photographs of  the Monuments Men, the Nazi art repositories, the Nazis admiring stolen art, the caves where the art treasures were hidden, and many many more scenes. Edsel provides his readers with a few photographs showing the devastation of some of the cities such as Florence, the gutted streets of Aachen, and the destroyed town of Saint Lo. There are several detailed maps showing the paths of the Monuments Men and the location of the Nazi Art Repositories.

Although these photographs add much to the book, the format simply doesn't do justice to the subject matter. It's unfortunate this work couldn't have been published with larger pages, on better quality paper with colour photographs of some of the works of art. Younger readers should be encouraged to research pictures of the various art works from their local library and through the internet.

Nevertheless, Edsel's The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History is a must read for those interested in World War II history. Edsel presents what is a complex story in a way that is relatively easy to understand and imparts to his readers both the immensity of the task facing the Monuments Men and the reasons why their mission was so important. The book drives home the message that these priceless art treasures belong to everyone and are part of both our cultural past but also our future.

The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History contains a Glossary, and Bibliography, extensive Source Notes, Photograph and Map credits and an Index.

Book Details:

The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History by Robert Edsel
New York: Scholastic Focus     2019
333 pp.



Image credits:

Maesta:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maest%C3%A0_(Duccio)#/media/File:Duccio_maesta1021.jpg

Michelangelo's Madonna and child:  http://visit-bruges.be/see/churches/church-our-lady

We Will Not Be Silent by Russell Freedman

We Will Not Be Silent tells the story of the White Rose Student Resistance Movement, formed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany. This group, formed to motivate and inspire the German people to rise up against Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) party, was founded by Hans Scholl, his younger sister Sophie and their friend Christoph Probst.

The Scholls led a relatively idyllic life growing up in the small town of Ulm on the Danube River. Their family consisted of their parents, Robert and Magdalene and five siblings; Inge, Hans, Elizabeth, Sophie and Werner. The children loved their country with its beautiful landscapes and rich culture.

Robert Scholl was not a supporter of either the Nazi party nor of Hitler. Nor was he supportive when Hans and his other children all joined the Hitler Youth Movement. Robert saw through Hitler's promises to make Germany a great nation and knew they would destroy the country. But his children were. Although membership was first voluntary, it eventually "became mandatory for all boys and girls of proven 'Aryan' descent." Hans thrived at first in the Hitler Youth, enjoying the outdoor activities and comraderie. His leadership skills resulted in him being quickly promoted to squad leader.

In 1935, a huge Nazi Party rally was held in Nuremberg, complete with a speech by Adolf Hitler. Sixteen-year-old Hans Scholl was given the honor of carrying the flag for the Ulm Hitler Youth Contingent. However, this rally marked a turning point for Hans who returned to Ulm disillusioned by the rhetoric and indoctrination of his peers. He soon lost his position as a squad leader after being caught reading a banned book and a fight with another leader over the use of a flag one of Han's boys created for their group. Instead, he joined the Deutsche Jungendschaft (German Boys' League) or d.j.1.11 which was outlawed in 1936 when membership in the Hitler Youth became mandatory.

Soon Sophie too became disillusioned. Her path was similar to that of Hans; she was a squad leader in the Bund Deutscher Madel (League of German Girls) and was caught reading a banned book. Sophie also refused to abandon her friendships with Anneliese Wallersteiner and Luise Nathan, two Jewish classmates and close friends.

Hans, Sophie and Christoph, Munich 1942. All were later executed.

The troubles for the Scholls began in 1937 when fifteen-year-old Werner and his sisters Inge and Sophie were arrested in a crackdown by the Gestapo on dissident youth groups. Their parents were shocked that children would be arrested and also because Inge and Sophie were held for a week. Hans, who was serving his two years of compulsory military service in a German cavalry unit in Stuttgart, was also arrested, placed in solitary confinement and interrogated for five weeks. Eventually all charges were dismissed.

In 1938, as conditions in Germany continued to deteriorate and Hitler secretly prepared for all out war, Hans entered medical school. In 1940, Sophie graduated high school and attempted unsuccessfully to circumvent the mandatory six months duty with the Labor Service by working as a kindergarten teacher. Finally in 1942, Sophie joined Hans at Munich University, studying philosophy and biology. She soon joined Hans and his circle of friends which included Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst and Will Graf. Although they spent time doing typical things like reading and recommending books, they often discussed the repressive political climate in Germany and what was happening in the war. The reports of death camps, mass murder of Jewish citizens along with the disappearance of many Jewish friends and neighbours were deeply troubling.

When Roman Catholic bishop, Clemens A. Graf von Galen publicly denounced the Nazi's brutal euthanasia program, Hans was impressed. Hans and his friends decided the time had come  to take a stand. It was a decision that would prove costly to Hans, Sophie and many others but be remembered as deeply heroic.

Discussion

We Will Not Be Silent is a well written account that takes young readers through the events that led to the formation of the White Rose student resistance group, their brave acts of resistance against the Nazi regime, and finally to the capture and execution of Hans and Sophie Scholl and other group members.

Freedman does an excellent job of describing the Scholl's early years, providing insight as to how their deep love of their fatherland was one of the motivating factors in their decision to begin to passively resist the Nazi regime.At the same time, Germany's descent into tyranny is portrayed in a way that encourages younger readers to consider what life under Nazi rule must have been like.

Freedman portrays the complicated and terrible situation Germans now found themselves in after the infamous night of November 9, 1938. Known as Kristallnacht, mobs attacked Jews, breaking in to homes and shops, vandalizing and destroying them, beating and killing Jews and burning synagogues. "Many Germans were shocked by the brutality of the attacks. Some turned their faces away from the wreckage and wept. But the iron grip of the Nazi regime stifled any meaningful opposition. One newspaper ridiculed the 'softhearted squeamishness' of those who expressed sympathy for Jewish victims of the violence. Most Germans kept their opinions to themselves. 'The cowed middle classes stared at the Nazi monster like a rabbit at a snake,' wrote one German observer."

It was this Nazi monster that Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie and their student friends decided to confront. Hans felt it was "preposterous" that they were studying to heal people when the state was killing them by the thousands. And so they began creating anti-Nazi leaflets that encouraged the German people to "put up as fierce a fight as possible;" and to "Offer resistance - resistance- wherever you may be...before it is too late;" The series of leaflets also focused on calling to the German people's attention, the atrocities being committed in German occupied countries. Freedman lays out the dangers Hans, Sophie, Willi, Alex and others were courting just by this simple resistance.

We Will Not Be Silent portrays the tremendous courage Hans and Sophie Scholl and other resistance members displayed when finally caught, and interrogated by the Gestapo. Knowing she likely faced death, Sophie challenged the chief Gestapo interrogator, Robert Mohr, telling him, "I would do it all over again -- because I'm not wrong...You have the wrong worldview." As Sophie predicted, what they did, made waves. The White Rose leaflets continued after the execution of the Scholls and many others, even finding their way to London where the British reproduced them and dropped them by the thousands on German cities.

Freedman's account of the White Rose Resistance Movement is both moving and timely. Reader's can't help but be deeply touched by the innocence, integrity, courage and determination of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Their resistance was not violent, but peaceful and passive - an attempt to reveal the truth in a country overwhelmed by lies.

Like the miracle of St. Denis, who continued to preach the truth even while carrying his decapitated head, the truths Hans and Sophie Scholl were trying to tell their countrymen, continued to be told even after they too were beheaded.

We Will Not Be Silent is a must read for those studying war, resistance movements and the heroes of World War II. Russell Freedman included many black and white photographs from the era, which help younger readers place the events in proper context. There is a listing of Source Notes and an Index at the back. Well written, deeply moving and inspirational.


Resources:

From the Jewish Virtual Library: Holocaust Resistance: The White Rose - A Lesson In Dissent by Jacob G. Hornberger

From the National Catholic Register: Remembering Sophie Scholl's Witness by Jay Copp

Image Credit: https://beastproduction.eu/the-white-rose-die-weise-rose/

Book Details:

We Will Not Be Silent by Russell Freedman
New York: Clarion Books     2016
104 pp.

Mary's Monster: Love, Madness,and How Mary Shelley Created FRANKENSTEIN by Lita Judge

Mary's Monster by Lita Judge explores the life of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. Written in free verse accompanied by the author's impressive black and white illustrations, Judge tells the story of Mary Shelley's life and how she came to create one of the most famous novels of all time. There are nine parts to the book which spans the time period from 1801 to 1823. Judge employs two narrators; the Creature and Mary Shelley.

The book's opening Prologue is written in the voice of The Creature who tells the world that Mary Shelley created him as a way to expose the cruelty of the world.

In Part I Exile, fourteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft is on the deck of the Osnaburgh, heading for Scotland. Mary is feeling sad and isolated, remembering that her father did not see her off; only her sisters Fanny and Claire were there. She reminisces about her childhood.

Mary was born the night Herschel's comet blazed across the London sky. Mary's father  told her the story of the comet and its discovery by a woman, Caroline Herschel leading Mary to believe she could do anything in life. She was encouraged to read, to be independent and to use her imagination. But that changed in 1802 when her father married the Widow Clairmont, bringing into their family her daughter Claire Clairmont and a son named Charles.

In 1805 the family moved from their home in Somers Town to an abandoned shop in Holborn, a block from the gallows at Newgate Prison. Mary's stepmother hoped that her father would write and sell books from the shop and get them out of their financial troubles. But her father was more interested in political and social issues. At this time Mrs. Godwin convinced Mary's father to send her away. She lives with a widower name Baxter and his daughters.

Part II My Second Birth, covers the period from June 1812 to March 1814. Mary is living at Mr. Baxters home at Broughty Ferry with his daughters. She soon develops a close friendship with Isabella Baxter who has a passion for the French Revolution. The Baxter's library contains many books including those written by both Mary's father and mother. Reading her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft's novel, Maria, encourages Mary to take up her mother's ideals. Scotland becomes Mary's "Eyrie of Freedom".

Part III Return to Darkness March to April 1814. Mary returns to London to live with her family in the overwhelming stench and squalor of Holborn. Her stepsister Claire is now fifteen, her sister Fanny is thin and withdrawn. Fanny is Mary's half-sister: she has a different father, a married man who abandoned their mother.  A young poet named Percy Bysshe Shelley has been corresponding with Mary's father.

Part IV The Poet May-July 1814. Twenty-one-year-old Percy Shelley begins visiting the Godwins almost every day. Well-born and in line to inherit a fortune, Percy has been abandoned by his wife Harriet who is pregnant. Mary finds herself attracted to Percy from their first encounter. Soon Mary and Percy, along with Claire go for long walks, talking about galvanism, alchemy, gravity and astronomy. Fanny reminds Mary however, that Shelley is still married, that his wife is due to give birth to their second child soon, and that Shelley cannot be trusted - just as the man that got their mother pregnant abandoned her. However, Mary believes that people in love should be together. In late June, Mary and Percy make love beside her mother's grave after Percy reveals his tormented soul. Mary believes he simply needs to be loved.

Her decision to live with Shelley angers her father and stepmother. Shelley has promised Mary they will live in Switzerland like other free thinkers. Claire who passes letters between Mary and Shelley begs Mary to take her with them. Mary's father refuses to allow her to leave but on July 28, 1814, Mary and Shelley along with Claire race to Dover and then cross over to Calais, France. For Mary it is the beginning of life on her own terms, one that will result in much pain and loneliness but which will result in the creation of a new literary genre and one of the most famous works of literature of all time.

Discussion

Lita Judge, an awarding winning children's author and illustrator was inspired to write Mary's Monster after contracting a virus that led to her developing an serious autoimmune illness. During the next two years as she convalesced, Judge found herself rereading a favourite novel, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein or A Modern Prometheus". Judge was fascinated by the fact that Shelley had written her novel when she was only eighteen years old. As she delved deeper in Shelley's life by reading her journals, Judge found herself and this led Judge to want to tell Mary's story and how she came to write Frankenstein.

The widely accepted account of how Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein is that the germ of the story resulted from a dream Mary had after nights of reading ghost stories at the villa of Lord Byron. However, Judge's belief is that Mary Shelley's troubled life, her experiences of being mistreated by her father's second wife, of being sent away to Scotland, of being abandoned by her father when she became pregnant by her married lover Percy Bysshe Shelley and her many other hardships, were in fact the genesis of Frankenstein. In her Author's Note at the back, Judge writes,
"The popular myth is that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was conceived spontaneously on a stormy night in answer to a dare  to write a ghost story. That evening did occur, but countless events in Mary's life before and after that evening played a much greater role in the horror novel's creation. My story is an attempt to trace the many origins of her genius. It's a testament to a resilient girl whose imagination, forged by isolation, persecution, and loss, created a new form of storytelling as a means of connecting with the very society that had socially exiled her."

In her novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley explores the themes of pain, isolation and abandonment as  Dr. Frankenstein rejects the creature he created. Her novel was also a commentary on the use of science in the early 1800's. During this time, many new discoveries were being made in science about the natural world. Mankind was on the cusp of the scientific age and hoped to tame the world through the use of science, especially the disciplines of alchemy and galvanism. Mary saw man's ambition to create life and to dominate nature as potentially destructive to the world and to man himself.

Like her father William Godwin, and mother Mary Wollenstonecraft, Mary also rebelled against the social norms of her day. Mary Wollstonecraft was a firm believer in the rights of women, believing that they were equal to men. She sets out her beliefs in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, written in 1792, probably her best known work. She had an affair with a married man, Gilbert Imlay, an American who ultimately abandoned her. Mary gave birth to a daughter, Fanny while in France where she was writing and studying the ongoing French Revolution. She attempted to restart her relationship with Imlay but he refused, resulting in two suicide attempts by Mary. Back in England Mary met William Godwin, an advocate for the abolition of marriage. Yet they married when Mary Wollstonecraft became pregnant. Mary died after giving birth to their daughter Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. William Godwin was a radical who had anarchist tendencies. His publication of his wife's biography after her death which acknowledged her affair with Imlay, her illegitimate child and her two suicide attempts brought him much criticism because all of these behaviours were seen as scandalous and immoral. Having read her father's biography of her mother and been exposed to his ideas, Mary attempted to live her life in accordance with those ideas but found the reality was much different. Her father did not approve of her relationship with Percy Shelley and when she became pregnant outside of marriage, she was shunned.

Judge accomplishes her goal with a brilliant retelling of Mary Shelley's life in nine parts, the number nine being significant because it is the number of months of pregnancy and Mary's Frankenstein was written over a period of nine months, while she was pregnant with her second daughter Clara. She considered her novel her creative progeny. Through Mary's story, readers learn of the events in her life that ultimately influenced her writing Frankenstein. By writing her story in free verse, Judge pares Mary's life down to the important essentials while still retaining the pain, loneliness and sense of betrayal that Mary must have felt. Judge's ink, watercolour and pencil illustrations capture the dark moods of Percy Shelley, the emotional and physical struggles Mary endured, and the pain of the creature. The author story-boarded much of the book before beginning the writing process. Her timeline of creating the novel can be found on her website page, Mary's Monster Timeline.

Mary's Monster also includes an "Introduction" which introduces readers to both Mary Shelley and her novel Frankenstein. In her "Author's Note" at the back, Judge explains how she drew on a wealth of primary sources including Mary Shelley's journals, which events she excluded and provides an interesting exposition on parts of Mary's life. Her "What Became of Them" details the lives of family and several contemporaries of Mary Shelley. There is also a "What Were They Reading" section that lists what Mary and Percy were reading during their lives and a "Notes" that provides references for events in Mary's Monster.

Overall Mary's Monster is really quite an outstanding work and is a must read for fans of Frankenstein. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully executed.

Book Details:

Mary's Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created FRANKENSTEIN by Lita Judge
New York: Roaring Brook Press  2018
312 pp.

In Defiance of Hitler. The Secret Mission of Varian Fry by Carla Killough McClafferty

Varian Fry was an American citizen who moved to Marseilles France in August, 1940 with the sole purpose of aiding a special group of refugees flee to safety from the Gestapo. Fry had in his possession a list of approximately two hundred artists, writers, muscians, and scientists who were at risk of being captured and either sent to concentration camps or executed. Among the names were Marc Chagall, Heinrich Mann, and Max Ernst.

Fry had been to Germany in 1935 and saw firsthand what Hitler had in mind for the Jews of Europe. He was appalled at the brutal behaviour of the young German people who rioted and smashed the shops and homes of Jewish citizens. During his visit, Varian met with Ernst Hanfstaengl who was the chief of the Foreign Press Division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. Hanfstaengl told Fry that it was the Nazi Party's goal to remove all Jews in Europe either by deportation or by murdering them. Although Varian wrote a piece for The New York Times detailing the Nazi's plans, most of America remained unconvinced and unconcerned about the Jewish people at this time.

However in 1940 when Germany defeated France and set up a puppet government in Vichy, part of the armistice agreement required "the French government to surrender upon demand all Germans named by the German Government in France" as well as preventing the "removal of German war and civil prisoners from France into French possessions or into foreign countries". Varian knew that this meant people who opposed the Nazi Party, as well as people of Jewish ancestry, were in grave danger. Both political refugees and Jewish refugees had fled parts of Europe previously overrun by the Nazis and come to France in the hopes of leaving Europe for safer countries. Article 19, as the above portion of the Armistice was known, would prevent them from doing so.

Varian Fry along with several hundred other Americans met in the late spring of 1940 and formed the Emergency Rescue Committee. The main purpose of the ERC would be to help well-known refugees escape France. After an unfruitful search for someone qualified to accomplish this task, Varian volunteered to travel to France to set up the organization in Marseilles. Eventually Varian Fry was allowed to travel to France with a detailed list of refugees he should seek out and aid in leaving France. To accomplish this task he was given $3000 which he taped to his leg.

In Defiance of Hitler details Fry's work in setting up the ERC in Marseilles and the difficulties he had during his stay of just over a year. McCalfferty presents the reader with an uncompromising and detailed portrait of Varian Fry and his work in Marseilles, France. We see a man who worked 12 to 15 hours a day interviewing 50 refugees per day. He had to decide who was most likely in danger and which to save. We get a real sense of the danger and the difficulty Fry and his team experienced as well as the effort the refugees had to make to escape from France into Spain and on to freedom.
I had not known about Varian Fry until I saw this book on the shelf in my local library. It's a wonderful book about a man who couldn't stand by and watch while a certain group of people were being hunted down simply because of their beliefs or their heritage. Altough Fry knew that war in Europe had created millions of refugees, the vast majority of whom he couldn't help, he felt that each person he could help was a small victory. Imagine if the world had had many more Varian Fry's.

For further reading, try the following websites: Varian Fry. The American Schindler and the Varian Fry Institute.

Book Details:
In Defiance of Hitler. The Secret Mission of Varian Fry by Carla Killough McClafferty
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux 2008
196 pp.

Silent In An Evil Time by Jack Batten

Silent in an evil time: The brave war of Edith Cavell by Jack Batten tells the story of Edith Cavell, a British nurse who helped to rescue hundreds of British and French soldiers trapped behind German lines during World War I.

Author Jack Batten accomplishes a great deal in this book, providing historical information on the development of the nursing profession from the late 1800's into the early 1900's, as well as background information on the events and conditions that led to the start of the Great War. In this way, Silent in an evil time is much more than just a biography about a remarkable woman. Young readers will be familiarized with many prominent figures of this era and in the years immediately preceding the early 20th century, including Florence Nightingale and Archduke Franz Ferdinand.


I will leave it to readers to discover the significance of the phrase, "Silent in an evil time" to Edith Cavell. In the end Edith was not only known for her nursing and for her heroic efforts in helping Allied soldiers during the war but also in her belief that "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone."
Batten directs his young readers in an informative and captivating way to this book's sad ending.

Highly recommended for ages 10 to 15.

Book details:

Silent in an evil time: The brave war of Edith Cavell
by Jack Batten

Tundra Books 2007
135pp