by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Would you die for truth? Would you risk your life so that the truth might be revealed to others? Die for the freedom of speech? The main character in this book, Helmuth Hubener, was an actual 16-year-old German living through the Nazi regime during WWII who is sentenced to death for listening to a British radio station for the unvarnished truth of what was happening in the war. (German radios only reported the government's version of what was occurring.) He would then type up pamphlets to be distributed around Hamburg, Germany with the facts. Either of these acts could be seen as treason.
As I read this book, I am surprised at the organization of this book...it is a chapter book with no chapters. Literally, you begin this book and it is a continuous story until it ends. It is also unique in that it italicizes the words as the narrator tells his story in the present. Most of the story develops in the other sections that flashback to the narrator's past to explain who he has landed himself in jail waiting for his own execution.
As I read this book, I am surprised at the organization of this book...it is a chapter book with no chapters. Literally, you begin this book and it is a continuous story until it ends. It is also unique in that it italicizes the words as the narrator tells his story in the present. Most of the story develops in the other sections that flashback to the narrator's past to explain who he has landed himself in jail waiting for his own execution.