Members, remember to participate in our free book programs by Saturday!

Summary and Reviews of My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young (Pennypacker)

My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young (Pennypacker)

My Enemy's Cradle

by Sara Young (Pennypacker)
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • First Published:
  • Jan 14, 2008, 384 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2008, 384 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, My Enemy's Cradle keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.

Cyrla's neighbors have begun to whisper.

Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father's custody—or taken away. A note is left under the mat. The neighbors know that Cyrla, sent from Poland for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won't be safe there for long.

And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn—Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims?

Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, My Enemy's Cradle keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.

ONE
SEPTEMBER 1941

"Not here, too! Nee!"

From the doorway, I saw soup splash from my aunt's ladle onto the tablecloth. These days, there was no fat in the broth to set a stain; still, my heart dropped when she made no move to blot the spill. Since the Germans had come, she had retreated further into herself, fading away in front of me so that sometimes it was like losing my mother all over again.

"Of course here, Mies," my uncle scoffed. His pale face pinked with the easy flush of red-haired men, and he leaned back and took off his glasses to polish them on his napkin. "Did you think the Germans would annex us as a refuge for Jews? The question is only why it took so long."

I brought the bread to the table and took my seat. "What's happened?"

"They posted a set of restrictions for Jews today," my uncle said. "They'll scarcely be able to leave their homes." He inspected his glasses, put them back on. ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

My Enemy's Cradle is a good read, though there are plot elements and character interactions that may strike some as unrealistic. However, these portions do gain credibility by virtue of the unnatural setting and extreme time in which they take place. Risky decisions, compromise and relationships – both forbidden and convenient – during the German occupation are part of Cyrla's story, as they are part of World War II history...continued

Full Review Members Only (562 words)

(Reviewed by Stacey Brownlie).

Media Reviews

The Observer - Francesca Segal
Young's novel is meticulously researched and the facts are unobtrusive, wrought into the story with intelligence and precision.

Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Children's-book author Young (who, as Sara Pennypacker, penned the celebrated Stuart series) makes a stunning adult debut with this beautifully told and heart-wrenching novel set in WWII Europe."

Library Journal - Christine DeZelar-Tiedman
Young explores the experiences of these women in her fictional story of Cyrla, a young Polish/Dutch woman who enters a Lebensborn maternity home in place of her cousin Annika.

Kirkus Reviews
Earnest but ultimately sentimental rather than profound.

Author Blurb Elizabeth Berg
What a story! My Enemy's Cradle offers intrigue, suspense, compassion, heartbreak and joy. Sara Young writes with the intelligence and authority of an historian, but also with the sensitivity, precision, insight and grace of a poet. I was hooked from page one, and found the ending to be one of the most satisfying I've read in a long time.

Reader Reviews

maggie

My Enemy's Cradle
One of the best books I have read in years. The characters are so real you hate for the book to end; the characters have become YOUR family members.
Myksmom

Captivating
Loved this book! Once I started reading I couldn't put it down, stayed up until 2 am to finish it last night.
Nicole

Wow
Wow. this book is honestly the most heart-wrenching, beautiful book ever. Sara Young is an amazingly talented author. Cyrla's is a wonderfully created character, she is genuinely innocent and insightful. Thank you for adding to the large array of ...   Read More
beth-ann

My enemy's cradle.
I happen to think this book is one of the best I have ever read. It kept me on the edge of wherever I was sitting, it never ceased to let me down. I recomend it because it's a heart-striking novel with some twists and turns that make it worth the ...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Beyond the Book



Sara Young previously has published seven children's book under the pen name Sara Pennypacker, including the Stuart series and the Clementine series. Before becoming an author, she was a painter. She lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. For more about her, please see the interview at BookBrowse.


Lebensborn (Fount of Life), founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1935, was originally set up to provide maternity homes and financial assistance to wives of the SS and unmarried ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked My Enemy's Cradle, try these:

  • Cradles of the Reich jacket

    Cradles of the Reich

    by Jennifer Coburn

    Published 2023

    About this book

    More by this author

    Three women, a nation seduced by a madman, and the Nazi breeding program to create a so-called master race.

  • Trieste jacket

    Trieste

    by Dasa Drndic

    Published 2015

    About this book

    "A masterpiece" (A.N. Wilson), this many-layered novel of WWII combines fiction with a Sebaldian collage of facts to explore the fate of Italian Jews under Nazi occupation, through the intimate story of a mother's search for her son

We have 10 read-alikes for My Enemy's Cradle, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    "I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been ...
  • Book Jacket: Everything We Never Had
    Everything We Never Had
    by Randy Ribay
    Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to ...
  • Book Jacket: The Demon of Unrest
    The Demon of Unrest
    by Erik Larson
    In the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election, the divided United States began to collapse as ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Never read a book through merely because you have begun it

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now