Facing the Enemy

October 2, 2023
Based on real-life events from 1937 to 1941, this illuminating verse novel by Krasner (Ethel’s Song) traces the evolution of a Nazi youth camp in suburban New Jersey during Hitler’s rise to power and its effect on the friendship of two teens: Jewish American Benjy and German American Tommy. When Tommy’s alcohol-dependent father—still grieving his first-born son who died in Germany before Tommy was born—forces Tommy to attend nearby Camp Nordland to “embrace” his German heritage, Tommy eagerly complies, desperate to win his father’s love and approval. He is quickly swept up in the group’s pro-Hitler/anti-Jewish rhetoric and casts aside his bewildered longtime best friend Benjy. Meanwhile, Benjy, his father, and their Jewish community form an anti-Nazi vigilante organization intending to shut down Camp Nordland. Krasner’s depiction of Tommy’s shifting loyalties between his political stances and his feelings for Benjy reads as somewhat implausible; Benjy’s acutely expressed grief and confusion over the loss of his and Tommy’s friendship, by comparison, portrays Benjy as a deeply sympathetic character, making for uneven narration. Major characters are white. An author’s note, glossary, timeline, and historical photos conclude. Ages 12–up.

October 1, 2023
The story of a friendship torn apart when Nazi ideology arrives on America's shores. It's 1937, and two young best friends--Benjamin Puterman, who is Jewish, and Thomas Anspach, who is German American and presumably Christian--are anticipating the joys of summer. But Tommy's harsh father has other plans: He enrolls his 13-year-old son in Camp Nordland in rural New Jersey. The camp's purpose is to immerse German American youths in their heritage, including the propaganda of Hitler's Nazi Party, and Tommy quickly learns that he can't be friends with Benjy anymore. But the people of New Jersey aren't staying silent about Nordland, and when Benjy's father joins the Newark Minutemen, a group of "anti-Nazi vigilantes," Benjy, also 13, pleads with his elders to let him help. His plea leads to the founding of the Minutekids. As the years pass and Hitler marches across Europe, Benjy and Tommy, who are in school together, circle each other. When the 1940s roll around, the ground shifts. Is reconciliation possible? Each boy struggles with different types of personal adversity, and the challenges of their relationship highlight an important, lesser-known chapter in U.S. history. Unfortunately, many of the poems feel flat, and the two teens' voices sound very alike and not much like those of real adolescents. Critical historical information conveyed through poems that don't do justice to the subject's emotional weight. (author's note, glossary, timeline, source notes, bibliography, further reading/viewing, picture credits) (Verse historical fiction. 13-18)

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November 1, 2023
Grades 7-10 A Nazi youth camp in the U.S. is a feature of Krasner's (Ethel's Song, 2022) novel in verse, set in New Jersey in the late 1930s and early '40s. Much of the novel is based on history, though its co-protagonists (Jewish Benjy Puterman and German American Tommy Anspach) are fictional. Despite their differences, the two are best friends until Tommy's militant, alcoholic father insists he go to camp "to embrace his German heritage." Attending means being indoctrinated by Nazi propaganda, wearing the German uniform, saluting the German flag, handling guns, speaking only German, and more. Tommy returns from camp a changed boy, spewing antisemitic language and renouncing his friendship with Benjy. The novel's action moves back and forth between Tommy's and Benjy's first-person accounts, doing a nice job of adding complexity to the plot. The straightforward language is serviceable, and the subject is evergreen. Good for independent reading and, especially, classroom use.

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