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Book Summary and Reviews of The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

The Boy Who Dared

by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2008, 208 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A Newbery Honor Book author has written a powerful and gripping novel about a youth in Nazi Germany who tells the truth about Hitler.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, Hitler Youth, and fleshed it out into thought-provoking novel. When 16-year-old Helmut Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason. Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmut's story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times , to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"It's a message that must be continually emphasized as a lasting legacy of the Holocaust." —School Library Journal

"A lengthy author's note distinguishes fact from fiction, and Bartoletti provides a detailed chronology, a bibliography, and many black-and-white photos of Helmuth with friends, family, and members of his Mormon church. This is an important title for the Holocaust curriculum." —Booklist

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Author Information

Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Susan Campbell Bartoletti is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of many fiction and nonfiction books for children. Her fiction includes the novels The Boy Who Dared, Dear America: A Coal Miner's Bride, and No Man's Land, as well as a number of picture books. She won the Newbery Honor for her nonfiction book Hitler Youth. A former eighth-grade teacher for 18 years, Bartoletti now writes full-time and lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

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