The Winter War, by William Durbin, $15.99. In November 1939, on the eve of World War II, Russia’s Red Army outnumbered Finland’s troops by a ratio of 4-to-1. The Russians assumed they easily could invade their neighbor and seize some attractive land.
They didn’t reckon on the Finns’ fervent nationalism and superlative winter skiing and orienteering skills. Durbin’s story about the Finnish resistance is an underdog epic of the men, boys, and some women and girls, who held off the Red Army until March 1940, when the Moscow Peace Treaty achieved a compromise. (Russia got some of the Finnish land it wanted, and one-fifth of Finland’s industrial capacity.)
This tense, gripping novel helps explain how international alliances were formed during World War II, when Finnish sentiments remained hostile to Russia and to the U.S., France and Britain for failing to send military support during the Winter War. Ages 10 and up.
Donavan’s Double Trouble, by Monalisa DeGross, illustrations by Amy Bates, $15.99. The appealing sequel to “Donavan’s Word Jar” illuminates the increasingly frequent scenario of wounded war veterans who find themselves re-inventing their lives.
Donavan’s cherished uncle Vic returns from active duty in a wheelchair, a sight that induces fear, sorrow and embarrassment in the confused young boy. Uncle Vic is facing his own demons, especially working out how to fit back into the family that doesn’t seem to know what to do with him now. Basketball, the game that formerly united Donavan and his uncle, returns, in a different venue, to bring them together again. Ages 7 to 10.
Owning It: Stories about Teens with Disabilities, edited by Donald R. Gallo, $17.99. This excellent collection of short stories forthrightly examines issues that most of us prefer to overlook — teenagers with drinking problems or weight problems, kids in wheelchairs, kids whose Asperger’s syndrome launches involuntary rants, kids with crippling migraines, kids with brain injuries.
The authors include luminaries Chris Crutcher and Alex Flinn, and every story strikes with honesty. Flinn’s account of a girl who tries to camouflage her devastating brain injury is especially acute. It would be enlighting to anyone who wants to better understand the enormity of the task facing patients at Denver’s Craig Hospital, which specializes in spinal cord and traumatic brain injury. Ages 12 and up.
Elijah of Buxton, by Christopher Paul Curtis, $16.99. Newbery medalist Curtis sets this story in the Canadian town legendary as a haven for runaway slaves in the pre-emancipation U.S. At age 11, Elijah is the town’s first free-born child, initially with a slightly naive view of those born in slavery.
Kidnapped by a former slave who was robbed by another refugee, Elijah finds himself in the U.S., where immediately he’s schooled in the distinction between freemen and slaves. Curtis tells Elijah’s story with warmth, compassion and outrage, sentiments that readers will share. Ages 8 and up.
The Snow Goose, by Paul Gallico, illustrated by Angela Barrett, $17.99. A hunchbacked Scottish hermit’s stewardship of an abandoned lighthouse and the surrounding birds is told sparely and affectionately. His unlikely friendship with a semi-literate local child follows in language that lends itself to legends rather than bathos.
When he takes it upon himself to rescue the same shipwrecked humans who rejected him for his wrecked body, the hermit’s stalwart attitude seems more pragmatic than anything. Gallico, a superlative storyteller, creates a wrenching tale about the noblest sort of fealty.
