Rose Under Fire

Starred review from July 15, 2013
This companion to Wein's Printz Honor- and Edgar-winning Code Name Verity introduces Rose Justice, a Pennsylvania teenager and volunteer civilian pilot during WWII. Rose is ferrying a Spitfire back to England from France for the Royal Air Force when she is captured by Nazis and sent to Ravensbruck, the women's concentration camp. Designated a "skilled" worker, Rose is assigned to a factory; when she realizes that she's making bomb fuses, she stops working. Two brutal beatings later, she is reassigned to the high-security unit at the camp, where she is taken under the wing of the "Rabbits"--Polish political prisoners whose bodies have been horrifically abused by Nazi doctors for medical experimentation. Because Rose recounts her capture and imprisonment after the fact, in a journal, initially for cathartic purposes, her story doesn't have the same harrowing suspense of Code Name Verity, but it's no less intense and devastating. Eventually, Rose realizes the true purpose of the journal is to fulfill the promise she made to her Ravensbruck sisters: to tell the world what happened there. Wein excels at weaving research seamlessly into narrative and has crafted another indelible story about friendship borne out of unimaginable adversity. Ages 14-up. Agent: Ginger Clark, Curtis Brown.