Young Readers

Behind the Bedroom Wall

A Novel of Nazi Germany

“A complex and involving moral tale.” —LOS ANGELES TIMES

It is 1942. Korinna, a thirteen-year-old girl in Germany, is an active member of the local Jungmadel, a Nazi youth group, along with many of her friends. She believes that Hitler is helping Germany by dealing with what he calls the “Jewish problem,” a campaign that she witnesses as her Jewish neighbors are attacked and taken from their homes.

When Korinna discovers that her parents—who are secretly members of an underground resistance group—are sheltering a family of Jewish refugees behind her bedroom wall, she is shocked. As she comes to know the family her sympathies begin to turn, and when someone tips off the Gestapo, Korinna’s loyalties are put to the test. She must decide what she really believes and whom she really trusts.

An exciting novel for middle-grade readers, Behind the Bedroom Wall teaches tolerance and understanding while exploring why Nazism held so many in its deadly thrall.

ISBN

9781571316585

Publish Date

08/31/2005

Pages

184

Dimensions

5.19 × 7.94 × 0.56 in

Weight

7.4 oz

Cover Art

Author

Laura E. Williams

Praise and Prizes

“For the sake of my own—and everyone’s—grandchildren, I hope there will never be an end to the flow of stories that speak of history and to the human heart. May Behind the Bedroom Wall find its way onto the shelf of favorites and into the hands of young people who will shape our future by listening to our past.”

Lois Lowry

author of Number the Stars
“A totally engaging read … Twists around a familiar story—the Holocaust—and tells it from another direction.”

Seventeen
“A complex and involving moral tale … [Korinna’s] struggle to reconcile what she has been taught and what she has learned by example from her parents is a poignant one… . The story is instructive without being didactic.”

Los Angeles Times
“A page-turner from beginning to end … Behind the Bedroom Wall is exceptional and will be remembered.”

Beacon Free Press
“A good start toward answering the unanswerable question, how people could have let the Holocaust happen? The book portrays the alternative kind of person who refused to go along when it was all too easy to do so.”

Syracuse Jewish Observer
“Pays stirring tribute to the courage and ingenuity some outwardly ordinary people showed in those dark days.”

Kirkus
“In a subtle way, the novel touches on some quite controversial questions about the Holocaust—namely, why did millions of ordinary people support the Nazis, and why, in spite of the pressure, did some Germans choose to resist the fascists? … Behind the Bedroom Wall raises important questions for young readers not only about what happened but about how to stop it from happening again.”

Socialist Worker

Behind the Bedroom Wall

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