Children's books about World War II with non-British perspectives

Published on: 07 November 2024

Shadow Creatures author Chris Vick recommends books for children about World War II that offer a non-British perspective.

My new book Shadow Creatures is inspired by my family's experience of living under Nazi occupation in Norway between 1940-45; of what everyday life was like, with food scarce and freedom restricted. I explore what young people might do (and what many did) for their family, and for freedom.

There are many wonderful books exploring the British story and perspective; a good deal of evacuees on trains and 'tea and cake' in bomb shelters while Blitz bombs rain down. But it was a world war, and the story for millions of people was not of heroism on the front line, nor of life in free Britain, but of living in the shadow of a gun, under harsh conditions and in danger every second. Of not knowing when – or even if – it was ever going to end.

For Armistice Day, I have put together a list of books with stories not set in Britain, and which – I hope – explore a range of experiences, and which can help us to make sense of the great tragedy of World War II, in which over 75 million people died in just a few short years.

It has to be said too, that whilst the themes in these books may be serious, many are also great adventures. I definitely took inspiration from that in writing Shadow Creatures!

Safiyyah's War by Hiba Noor Khan

Widely praised, multi-prize-winning/nominated, and rightly so. This is a work of fiction, yet rooted in the very real events of Paris under occupation, where a pocket of Muslim resistors helped allied soldiers and over 2,000 Jews escape the Nazis: first by hiding them, then by providing forged documents and smuggling them to safety via tunnels under the Grand Paris Mosque.

The Silver Sword by Ian Serrailier

An odyssey of children travelling across war-ravaged Europe to find their parents. It was written not too long after World War II based on eyewitness accounts.

Don't let its age put you off; the story is written with cut-glass clarity and deceptive simplicity. It's totally compelling. Like many good stories, it's not so much 'about' the war, but of ordinary people caught up in a terrible storm they didn't cause or choose. It's one of the best books about human nature.

The Holocaust: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Maus by Art Spiegelman

There are many books to choose from here. Whilst World War II is, of course, much more than the Holocaust, it is without doubt one of the war's defining characteristics, and not only of those few years, but all human history. Can art and stories make sense of the utterly senseless? I have chosen two true accounts.

Anne Frank's famous diary is not about the Holocaust itself, but life under its growing shadow, and the journey towards tragedy that was true for millions of people (largely Jews, but also gay men, Russian prisoners, disabled people, Roma, and more).

Based on Art Spiegelman's father's experiences in Poland, Maus is a graphic novel, where the Jews are mice and the Germans cats. It sounds odd, and it is, but it's hugely accessible and profound and moving. It won the Pulitzer Prize for a reason.

Now or Never: A Dunkirk Story by Bali Rai

It is tempting to see World War II as a titanic struggle of forces fighting for freedom and democracy against totalitarianism and terror. There is some truth in that, but the reality, as ever, is more complicated. For example, many countries ended up as part of Stalin's Soviet empire. And many soldiers fighting for the allies were citizens of countries living under occupation and harsh rule, namely soldiers from countries of the British Empire.

Bali Rai's book brilliantly explores what it's like to be one of those soldiers – Fazal – who questions what and who he is really fighting for, and against.

Salt to the Sea by Rita Sepetys

This is a story of refugees looking for safety on a ship in East Prussia towards the end of the war. I loved travelling with Joana, Emelia and Florin's urgent, realistic voices as their stories and narratives converge. Like many stories on this list, this book explores how extreme circumstances, doctrines and 'power' can bring out the very worst in people, but how they also force people to find the very best of what humans can do and be.

Perhaps that is the thread that links these stories? That in spite of the complex truth of war's end, the better side of humanity eventually triumphed, though not without great sacrifice.

It's these very themes I explore in Shadow Creatures.