About This Book:
In 1936 Berlin, nothing is what it seems…
Evie Harris can’t believe her luck: She’s competing in the Olympics, along with fellow American athletes like Jesse Owens. True, there’s something creepy about Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler, who watches over the games with his Nazi henchmen. But Evie’s just here to win a gold medal in gymnastics.
Until she discovers a horrible secret.
Behind all the Olympic fanfare, the Nazis have Berlin in an iron grip of terror and violence–and war is brewing. When Evie becomes embroiled in a mysterious plot to help steal Nazi gold, she must navigate the city’s darkest corners and hidden passageways, never knowing who she can trust.
With lives on the line and her family’s future at stake, Evie has to choose between following her Olympic dreams and standing up to evil… before it’s too late.
*Review Contributed by Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer*
It’s a bit surprising that there haven’t already been middle grade books about the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, so it’s good to have one on this topic. Including sports of any kind is always a great way to attract readers, and there are very few books involving gymnasts! Evie’s background, having barely survived the Dust Bowl, was interesting, and Heinz, as her Hitler Youth overseer, has a lot of surprises. Gratz worked hard to include mentions of many people from backgrounds targeted by the Nazis; there are characters that are LGBTQIA+, Black, and Jewish, and there is good information about how the Nazis treated them. I was unaware that Germany specifically brought in Jewish athletes who didn’t “look Jewish” to deflect attention from their discrimination, or that some Jewish shops were allowed to be open. The fact that Berlin put on a good face for the event, and his crumbling facades behind Nazi flags was also interesting. The book ends with several pages of notes about what portions of the book were real, and which were fiction.
This was a longer book, coming in at over 350 pages. The bank heist took up so much of the story, and seemed like an odd inclusion. I’m all for action and suspense, but it came across as a bit goofy. Having Mary impersonate Riefenstahl was the only good part of that plot arc. There would have been plenty going on in the book with Evie’s Depression Era background, and Heinz’ family situation, and there were some things about the Olympics and Germany in 1936 that could have been explored more.
Gratz has a lot of avid fans who will be looking forward to this, but there are some things I would have changed about the story. More information about the women’s gymnastics team in the Olympics would have been fascinating. Add this to the still steady stream of World War II books that are still being published, like Hopkinson’s They Battled in Blizzards, Nayeri’s The Teacher of Nomad Land, and the intriguing Rise of the Spider series by Michael Spradlin.
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