As another worthy entry into the canon of World War II related historical fiction, this book focuses on the famous Kindertransport system that helped to transport thousands of children out of various parts of Europe during the Nazi occupation of the region in the late 1930s, immediately prior to the official start of the war. In particular, the story focuses on the efforts of Truus Wijsmuller, a brave Dutchwoman who dedicated her life to helping countless children escape Nazi-occupied territories, both on her own as well as working with other agencies.
At the center of the story are the Neumans, a wealthy Jewish family whose chocolate-making business is known throughout Austria. Their teenage son Stephan is a budding playwright who, during the course of getting his haircut one day, meets math genius Zofie-Helene, a young Christian girl around his same age who quickly becomes his best friend and companion going on excursions together throughout the city of Vienna. Not long after they meet however, the Nazis invade Austria and soon, the 2 youngsters, along with Stephan's little brother Walter, find themselves having to flee the only home they'd ever known, venturing on a harrowing journey toward an uncertain future where safety and survival are the goal but unfortunately not guaranteed.
Over the years, I've read my fair share of WWII era novels and while stories set in this time period can difficult reads emotionally, I will continue to read them because of the importance I've always placed on knowing and understanding history as essential in order to learn from it. While this book did fall into the "necessary read" category for me and I'm definitely glad I read it (especially since my knowledge of the Kindertransports program was very limited prior to reading this), I feel like the story did not have as big of an emotional impact on me as other stories set in this era usually do. I think part of the reason for this is because of the way the story was formatted, which was basically with super short chapters where the narrative jumped back and forth from one character to another — this caused the story to come across too "choppy" for me and broke the flow a bit, to the point that it made it difficult for me to get into the story and connect with the characters as much as I had expected to. With that said, the last third or so of the story was actually quite strong and that's when I started to feel more of a connection with the characters, however by that time, it was already near the end of the story.
Overall though, I still feel that this story has the potential to be a powerful one if better executed, which is why I decided to round up in terms of the rating. I would also still recommend this one, as the story is a good one and the writing is good as well, it's just that the format didn't really work for me personally, but it might be fine for others.
Received ARC from Harper Books (HarperCollins) via NetGalley.
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