World War II on the Home Front

May 15, 2012
Grades 4-5 In the You Choose series, kids get to make their own decisions about ways to spend their time during the world wars. At the bottom of many pages, you are asked to make a decision about what to do or where to go. Subsequent decisions take you to the adventure's end, at which point readers may choose to go back and begin again and find out where an alternate path might have led. This tried-and-true formula works quite well, giving kids a sense of what it was like to be in a situation where every decision had an impact. World War II on the Home Front poses some interesting challenges. For instance, readers are asked to decide if they will help a Japanese friend, or run away. If you run away, what kind of remorse do you, as a Jewish boy, have? Will you hide your friend when he is about to be put in an internment camp? With most events based on real-life stories, the books in this series do an excellent job of giving background information to illuminate the you-are-there situations. Well-chosen photos also help bring events closer. A good deal of back matter helps kids learn more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)