 | Westfallen (Westfallen) Author: Brashares, Ann | |
| Price: $8.19 | ||
Summary:
Told in alternating voices and timelines, twelve-year-old Henry and his two friends unknowingly alter the outcome of World War II when they communicate over radio with three kids from 1944 and must now work together to change it back.
| Added Entry - Personal Name: | Brashares, Ben |
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: MG Reading Level: 4.00 Points: 12.0 Quiz: 552953 |
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (-) (07/15/24)
School Library Journal (+) (10/18/24)
Booklist (08/01/24)
The Hornbook (00/11/24)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 08/01/2024 When New Jersey middle-schoolers Henry, Lukas, and Frances unearth an old homemade crystal radio, it connects them with a similar trio in 1944. Lukas makes a chance comment about why the Normandy Invasion succeeded in surprising the Germans—and suddenly he and his friends are living in Westfallen, a cowed police state that was the U.S. until it was conquered by Nazis. Jewish Lukas is hustled off to a work gang, but Henry and Frances hit the library and discover that the Nazis learned of the Allies’ strategy back in 1944 thanks to a spy’s telegram sent from their own town. Can the twenty-first-century contingent rescue their friend while the twentieth-century one finds a way to intercept the message in, as it were, time? Switching between eras amid light washes of banter and period detail, talk of the “butterfly effect,” and examples of how changes in the past lead to consequences in the future set up a close that, disappointingly, only hints at a twist rather than actually revealing one. Readers will likely be left more bewildered than tantalized. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.
