My Brother's Shadow

August 15, 2011
“Nothing is going to be the way it used to be.” It’s 1918 in Berlin, and in four years’ time 16-year-old Moritz Schmidt has lost his father to the war and his baby sister to illness. Moritz feels increasingly distant from his mother and older sister, both active in the socialist revolution against the Kaiser, as well as his older brother, Hans. While his activist mother hides from the police, who are seeking to arrest her for treason, Moritz gets a job at the daily newspaper, gradually writing more articles for his mentor, Herr Goldman, while dreaming up ways to find food and money for his family. When Hans returns from war an injured and embittered radical, and Moritz falls for a socialist Jewish girl, he cannot reconcile his feelings: Is the revolution a salvation or a betrayal? In this nuanced and realistic work of historical fiction, Schröder (Saraswati’s Way) immerses readers in her setting with meticulous details and dynamic characters that contribute to a palpable sense of tension. Moritz’s intimate narration captures the conflicts, divided loyalties, and everyday horrors of the period. Ages 12–up.

August 1, 2011

Set in Berlin as World War I is nearing the ultimate, shameful defeat of Germany, the story 16-year-old Moritz narrates reveals the causes of the next great war.

By 1918, conditions in Germany, especially for civilians, were brutal: starvation, lack of essential goods, war-wounded on every street, dead soldiers from every family. Working-class Moritz is an apprentice printer taking the place of his father, who was killed at the front. His older brother, Hans, lost part of an arm and an eye fighting for his homeland and has become a morphine addict and street bully. In him, readers see the incipient Nazi as he and others attack an old Jewish man and he adopts of the creed of German vengeance. The slow unfolding of conditions and characters forces readers to see a full portrait of the then present and the soon future. Moritz meets Rebecca, daughter of a Jewish bookseller, and through her and her companions becomes involved in the politics of the Social Democrats. Here the book becomes somewhat preachy, as various political philosophies are presented. An author's note at the end of the book fills in historical details and names; it would be wise to read this before starting this gripping, active novel.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-Moritz, 16, struggles with the political climate and the realities of life in Germany near the end of World War I. He and his family feel the impact of the fighting acutely: Moritz's father died serving his country, and his brother, Hans, is injured in battle. Schroder gracefully weaves in the effects of war throughout the novel without being overbearing. To make up for the absence of his father and Hans, who suffers even more psychologically than he does from his physical injuries, Moritz works at the local newspaper and steals food to supplement rations. Meanwhile, his aunt, mother, and sister, all disillusioned with the Kaiser's government, become active in the socialist movement. Hope comes in the shape of two of Moritz's relationships. His friendship with a Jewish teen, Rebecca, blossoms into an innocent romance, and Herr Goldmann, his newspaper colleague, stokes his passion for writing by giving him assignments for the paper. The author develops Moritz's character through a series of difficult decisions he must make, some pitting him against his own family in a striking manner. The rushed ending foreshadows the anti-Semitic climate that developed in Germany in the years between the two World Wars. An author's note contains further information about the complex political and social environment of the period. Libraries in need of fiction from the World War I era will find this an acceptable choice.-Hilary Writt, Sullivan University, Lexington, KY

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2011
Grades 7-12 Berlin in 1918, at the end of WWI, is the setting for this moving historical novel told in the present-tense, first-person narrative of Moritz Schmidt, 16, who is not sure which side he is on in the raging national debate. His father died in battle. Now Moritz's brother, Hans, is in the trenches on the western front and is honored to serve the Kaiser. But his mother and older sister are radical socialists who hate the regime and are fighting to end the war and get women the right to vote. Then Hans returns severely wounded and bitter, rabid against the Jews and socialists, whom he blames for Germany's humiliating defeat. A clear afterword fills in the historical background, and readers will be caught up by the teen's personal experience in terrible timestired of his mother's ranting, tempted to join the local gang in violent looting, in love with a Jewish girl, and heartbroken about his brother. A good choice for sharing across the curriculum, this is a novel readers will want to discuss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2012
While his older brother Hans fights proudly for the Kaiser, sixteen-year-old Moritz sees another side of the war in homefront Berlin, where he lives with his mother, a war-widow and revolutionary. While characterization is functional and historical information not always smoothly worked in, the closing days of WWI in Berlin make for an unusual setting, well evoked by the clear writing.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

August 1, 2011

Set in Berlin as World War I is nearing the ultimate, shameful defeat of Germany, the story 16-year-old Moritz narrates reveals the causes of the next great war.

By 1918, conditions in Germany, especially for civilians, were brutal: starvation, lack of essential goods, war-wounded on every street, dead soldiers from every family. Working-class Moritz is an apprentice printer taking the place of his father, who was killed at the front. His older brother, Hans, lost part of an arm and an eye fighting for his homeland and has become a morphine addict and street bully. In him, readers see the incipient Nazi as he and others attack an old Jewish man and he adopts of the creed of German vengeance. The slow unfolding of conditions and characters forces readers to see a full portrait of the then present and the soon future. Moritz meets Rebecca, daughter of a Jewish bookseller, and through her and her companions becomes involved in the politics of the Social Democrats. Here the book becomes somewhat preachy, as various political philosophies are presented. An author's note at the end of the book fills in historical details and names; it would be wise to read this before starting this gripping, active novel.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)