THE EDGE OF WAR

by Dorothy Horgan ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 1988

By the author of Tom and Maggie (p. 693/C-111), a less well-developed story of children under stress. Anna's family is marked for trouble under the Nazis: darkhaired, Catholic, and none of them Party members. Father is an officer who suffers for his courage in speaking out, but survives detention; Mother, a teacher, is shipped off to a one-room school near the Polish border, but brings the family back to western Germany just before the Russians arrive. Though well-researched and obviously intended to make a case for conscientious anti-Nazis, Horgan's account lacks the firsthand immediacy of the many novels written by German survivors of the war; her characters and events are almost schematic, and the most dramatic events--Anna and a young Polish slave laborer take turns saving one another--depend on coincidence. Still, the background is authentic; the values are fairly presented; and the reading level, combined with the brisk action and age of the protagonist (Anna is 17 in 1945), would lend this to hi-lo use.

Pub Date: May 26, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 112

Publisher: Oxford Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1988

Categories: CHILDREN'S