Nonfiction Wednesday

 

I'm excited that Alyson Beecher, at Kid Lit Frenzy, is continuing her Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge for the fifth year in a row.

 

 

The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose

2015-book, audio-book, award-winner, biography, narrative-nonfiction, nonfiction, nonfiction-challenge-2016,  war, young-adult-book   I listened to this 2016 Sibert Honor Award winner, and wow!  What a fantastic book!  I was swept away by the story of a few courageous Danish boys who stood up to the Nazi regime during WWII. Bicycles and a frustration with the adults of Denmark fueled their protests.  I enjoyed listening to Phillip Hoose narrate parts of his book and talk about how his work with Knud Pedersen evolved. I will definitely purchase a copy of the print book for my classroom.  My 6th graders would love it.  It would go perfectly with our Social Responsibility and Leaving a Legacy unit.  We read a similar story about young German resistors in Scope Magazine a while back, which makes a good companion text.  We also read the picture book, The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark, which gives the reader a much different view of King Christian than Knud Pedersen and Phillip Hoose does.  It would be good for kids to research King Christian X and Denmark's WWII history to find out more.  I remember visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and being fascinated by the wall of names and stories about Nazi resistors, helping to save Jews at the obvious risk of their own lives.  Books like The Boys Who Challenged Hitler challenge us, too - who would you be during time of war?