HITLER’S DAUGHTER

In this intriguing story of what-if by an award-winning Australian writer, friends wait for their school bus during weeks of incessant rains as they listen to Anna relate the tale of Heidi, Hitler’s young daughter. While it starts as part of a storytelling game, Anna’s story takes on a compelling life as details of Heidi’s very privileged, very isolated life unfold. Initially the boys are excited about fighting and battles, but the view of war from Heidi’s perspective raises disturbing questions about genocide and children bearing responsibility for a parent’s guilt and vice versa. To the author’s credit, there are no easy answers given for this moral dilemma. Heidi survives the bunker in the closing days of WWII, sees her governess desert her, and joins a family who emigrate to Australia. Astute readers will realize well before the end that Anna’s story is not a made-up tale. In fact, it is her grandmother’s childhood. A fresh, well-told, and sobering story that needs a wide readership. (Fiction. 9-12)