This is a MG book first that I have read at least a dozen times, beginning in 1963 and most recently in 2024. The story told through one family's experience of how the Dutch survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands hammers home the importance of community. We need each other, plain and simple. Good times are not necessarily times of plenty, but those when we endure adversity together. A lesson for our time.
This acclaimed story of World War II is rich in suspense, characterization, plot and spiritual truth. Every element of occupied Holland is united in a story of courage and hope: a hidden Jewish child, an “underdiver,” a downed RAF pilot, an imaginative, daring underground hero, and the small things of family life which surprisingly carry on in the midst of oppression. The Verhagen family, who live in the old windmill called the Winged Watchman, are a memorable set of individuals whose lives powerfully demonstrate the resilience of those who suffer but do not lose faith.
This book of poems by Steve Sackin of Kansas City as he faces brain cancer is a testimony to the power of writing. Deeply affecting and life-affirming. In Steve's words, "To my surprise, after describing [experiences of being in nature], unexpected concluding commentary appeared I did not believe myself capable of writing. Where did this come from? Surprising, intriguing themes kept emerging again and again. I was not sure what this was about or where it was going, and the only way I was going to find out was to keep writing."
Things we experience when we are children are among the most intensely felt and affecting of all. Sometimes these events are deeply personal and private, and sometimes they are inextricable from what is happening in the world at that time. Charles Trueheart's childhood experience of Vietnam was both. A child's memories amid the lead-up to the United States' disastrous involvement, told with the clear-eyed objectivity of a seasoned journalist. Wonderful book.
For two Americans in Saigon in 1963, the personal and the political combine to spark the drama of a lifetime.
Before it spread into a tragic war that defined a generation, the conflict in Vietnam smoldered as a guerrilla insurgency and a diplomatic nightmare. Into this volatile country stepped Frederick "Fritz" Nolting, the US ambassador, and his second-in-command, William "Bill" Trueheart, immortalized in David Halberstam's landmark work The Best and the Brightest and accidental players in a pivotal juncture in modern US history.
Diplomats at War is a personal memoir by former Washington Post reporter Charles Trueheart-Bill's son and Nolting's…
When the Civil War breaks out, Susannah Shelburne and her husband are living in South Carolina with their son Francis. Despite his parents’ condemnation of the Southern cause, Francis enlists as a Confederate soldier.
When he’s wounded at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, Susannah departs with the intention of bringing him home. She finds him in a remote farmhouse where she must confront the Confederate officers who are reluctant to let her remain there. As the war grinds on, battle lines shift, and Francis becomes a prisoner of war. Susannah not only encounters physical and sexual violence, but she and Francis are soon engaged in a high-stakes battle of wills. Amid terrible news from home, Susannah faces impossible choices in her fight for their survival and reconciliation.
