World War II Books
Recommended Reads for 7th grade
Looking for some historical fiction set during WWII? Check out some of these books!
Remember that you can always search the library's catalog, Destiny Quest, to find books!
Find more World War II books in the Smith Library on this list in Destiny.
SPIES & PILOTS
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Find it in the Smith Library: FICTION Wein
Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.
When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.
As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?
A Michael L. Printz Award Honor book that was called "a fiendishly-plotted mind game of a novel" in The New York Times, Code Name Verity is a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other.
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
FICTION Wein
Description from Destiny:
When young American pilot Rose Justice is captured by Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp, she finds hope in the impossible through the loyalty, bravery, and friendship of her fellow prisoners.
Code Name Pauline by Pearl Witherington Cornioley
921 Cornioley
memoir*
Description from Destiny:
World War II resistance fighter Pearl Witherington Cornioley describes her experiences as a special agent for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).
Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith
Description from Destiny:
During World War II, a light-skinned African American girl "passes" for white in order to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
HIDING FROM THE NAZIS
My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve
Description from the publisher:
Escaping Nazi Germany on the kindertransport changes one girl's life forever.
At the start of World War II, ten-year-old Franziska Mangold is torn from her family when she boards the kindertransport in Berlin, the train that secretly took nearly 10,000 children out of Nazi territory to safety in England. Taken in by strangers who soon become more like family than her real parents, Frances (as she is now known) courageously pieces together a new life for herself because she doesn't know when or if she'll see her true family again. Against the backdrop of war-torn London, Frances struggles with questions of identity, family, and love, and these experiences shape her into a dauntless, charming young woman.
Originally published in Germany, Anne Voorhoeve's award-winning novel is filled with humor, danger, and romance.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
921 Frank
autobiography*
Description from Destiny:
Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic--a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.
Rescuing the Children by Deborah Hodge
940.53 Hodge
informational*
Description from Destiny:
Discusses the efforts of the Kindertransport, which rescued ten thousand Jewish children from Nazi occupied countries before the start of World War II.
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
FICTION Kerr
Description from Destiny:
Recounts the adventures of a nine-year-old Jewish girl and her family in the early 1930's as they travel from Germany to England.
PRISON & WORK CAMPS
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Description from the publisher:
Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.
Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously--and at great risk--documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg by Louise Borden
940.53 Borden
informational*
Description from Destiny:
Chronicles the life of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swede, who at the end of World War II was able to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi concentration camps.
Stones in Water by Donna Jo Napoli
FICTION Napoli
Description from Destiny:
After being taken by German soldiers from a local movie theater along with other Italian boys including his Jewish friend, Roberto is forced to work in Germany, escapes into the Ukrainian winter, before desperately trying to make his way back home to Venice.
Remembering Survival by Christopher R. Browning
940.53 Browning
informational*
Description from Destiny:
Discusses the experience of Jewish prisoners in a Nazi work camp, chronicling their sacrifices to protect their families and the Nazi guard's policies, which led to arbitrary killings in the Polish city of Starachowice and the later acquittal, in 1972, of Walter Becker, the German chief of police in Starachowice.
AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
Stepping on the Cracks by Mary Downing Hahn
Description from the publisher:
There's a blue star in Margaret's living room window, which means that her older brother Jimmy is overseas, fighting in the war Hitler started. There is one in Elizabeth's window, too, for her her brother Joe. But the girls' private war is with Gordy, the worst bully in sixth grade. After he and his friends tear down their tree house, Margaret and Elizabeth are determined to get even. They follow Gordy to his hideout in the woods, and stumble onto his alarming secret. It makes them more sympathetic toward the troubled boy. It also makes them question their feelings about war.
Mary Downing Hahn has drawn on her memories of her own childhood during World War II to create an authentic and thought-provoking novel.
Duke by Kirby Larson
FICTION Larson
Description from Destiny:
In 1944 Hobie Hanson's father is flying B-24s in Europe, so Hobie decides to donate his beloved German shepherd, Duke, to Dogs for Defense in the hope that it will help end the war sooner--but when he learns that Duke is being trained for combat he is shocked, frightened and determined to get his dog back.
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
FICTION Klages
Description from Destiny:
While her father works on the Manhattan Project in 1943, eleven-year-old gadget lover and outcast Dewey Kerrigan lives in Los Alamos Camp, and becomes friends with Suze, another young girl who is shunned by her peers.
Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac
LC Bruchac (book club collection)
Description from Destiny:
After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue.
FIGHTING IN THE WAR
Soldier X by Don Wulffson
Description from the publisher:
Sixteen-year-old Erik Brandt barely knows what Germany is fighting for when he is drafted into Hitler's army in 1944. Sent to the killing fields of the Eastern Front, he is surrounded by unimaginable sights, more horrific than he ever thought possible. It's kill or be killed, and it seems clear that Erik's days are numbered. Until, covered in blood and seriously injured, he conceives of another way to survive. Filled with gritty and visceral detail, Soldier X will change the way every reader thinks about the reality of war.
The Right Fight by Chris Lynch
FICTION Lynch
Description from Destiny:
When the draft board calls on the eve of World War II, Roman leaves behind a career in minor-league baseball to join the army, and finds himself driving a tank in the North African campaign.
Easy Company Soldier by Sgt. Don Malarkey
921 Malarkey
memoir*
Description from Destiny:
Presents the memoirs of Sgt. Don Malarkey, who is credited with spending more consecutive days in combat than any other member of Easy Company; and traces his trek across Europe from D-Day in 1944 to the end of the war in 1945.
We Were Heroes by Walter Dean Myers
FICTION Myers
Description from Destiny:
A seventeen-year-old soldier from central Virginia records his experiences in a journal as his regiment takes part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and subsequent battles to liberate France.
HONORABLE MENTIONS - HISTORICAL FICTION
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Description from Destiny:
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
LC Bartoletti (book club collection)
Description from Destiny:
In October 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people.
Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy
FICTION Roy
Description from Destiny:
From 1939, when Syvia is four and a half years old, to 1945 when she has just turned ten, a Jewish girl and her family struggle to survive in Poland's Lodz ghetto during the Nazi occupation.
HONORABLE MENTIONS - INFORMATIONAL
Bomb by Steve Sheinkin
LC 623.4 Sheinkin (book club collection)
Description from Destiny:
Examines the history of the atomic bomb, discussing the discovery of the behavior of uranium when placed next to radioactive material, the race to build a bomb, and the impact of the weapon on societies around the world.
Night by Elie Wiesel
921 Wiesel
memoir*
Description from Destiny:
Presents a true account of the author's experiences as a Jewish boy in a Nazi concentration camp.
Ghosts in the Fog by Samantha Seiple
LC 940.54 Seiple (book club collection)
Description from Destiny:
A narrative, nonfiction account of the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Aleutian Islands during World War II, told from the perspectives of an American civilian and soldiers from both sides of the conflict. Includes more than eighty photographs.
Want more?
You can find a nearly complete list of World War II books in the Smith Library on this list in Destiny.
This list was created by Natalie Harvey, Teacher Librarian, at Smith Middle School in Chapel Hill, NC. Yes, you may share it with others!