Code Name Verity: Summary and book reviews of Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, plus links to an excerpt from Code Name Verity and a biography of Elizabeth Wein.
Code Name Verity
by Elizabeth Wein
Hardcover: May 2012,
352 pages.
Paperback: May 2013,
352 pages.
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 and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?
Harrowing and beautifully written, Elizabeth Wein creates a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other. Code Name Verity is an outstanding novel that will stick with you long after the last page.
Through carefully crafted factual details, precise placement of suspense, and Queenie's phenomenal voice, Wein is able to literally make the reader hopeful and then skeptical, shocked and then relieved, all within a matter of paragraphs. She is brave in her dogged no-blink writing style just as Maddie and Queenie are brave in their staunch commitment to their incredibly dangerous jobs. And thus the reader becomes brave too. (Reviewed by Tamara Smith).
Booklist
Starred Review. If you pick up this book, it will take some time before you put your dog-eared, tear-stained copy back down.
Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. A carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching. Ages 14–up.
The Horn Book
Starred Review. [Code Name Verity] is outstanding in all its features - its warm, ebullient characterization; its engagement with historical facts; its ingenious plot and dramatic suspense; and its intelligent, vivid writing.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Wein balances the horrors of war against genuine heroics, delivering a well-researched and expertly crafted adventure. Ages 14–up.
It's called an Eterpen, a truly wonderful thing, no messy ink to refill and it dries instantly. He said they have ordered 30,000 of them for the RAF to use in the air (for navigation calculations) and a grateful RAF officer recently smuggled out of France had given one of the samples to Peter, who'd given it to the sergeant, who gave it to Maddie. ...Maddie was ridiculously pleased with her pen.
The gift that Maddie was so pleased to receive was, of course, the new and exciting ballpoint pen. László Bíró invented the first commercially viable ballpoint pen in 1938. Other attempts had been made before, but with little success because of issues with the viscosity of the ink and the need to rely on gravity. American tanner John Loud is, perhaps, the rightful inventor of the ballpoint pen, with his 1888 invention to mark leather products - a pen with a rotating ball held in place...
Raw, harrowing, and peopled with vibrant characters, In Darkness is an extraordinary book about the cruelties of man and nature, and the valiant, ongoing struggle for a country's very survival.
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(1145 words).
The gift that Maddie was so pleased to receive was, of course, the new and exciting ballpoint pen. László Bíró invented the first commercially viable ballpoint pen in 1938. Other attempts had been made before, but with little success because of issues with the viscosity of the ink and the need to rely on gravity. American tanner John Loud is, perhaps, the rightful inventor of the ballpoint pen, with his 1888 invention to mark leather products - a pen with a rotating ball held in place...
