Among the Red Stars

Katz's highly readable novel offers an entry into the story of the Soviet Union's famed WWII squadrons of airwomen, the "Night Witches." An accomplished pilot of a quirky, unreliable small plane, Valka leaps at the chance to sign up for the Motherland's first all-women fighter and bomber regiments. Soon she's operating as a bomber pilot, assigned to one of the slow, low-flying planes used for night attacks, with her beloved cousin Iskra as her navigator. Nazi fire, terrible weather, darkness, the loss of comrades, even commands to bomb their own countrymen all come into play, exercising Valka's aeronautical and emotional resources with dramatic effect. Most notably, though, Valka worries about her sweetheart Pasha in the infantry; when the chance comes to save him, she commits treason to do so. Katz is skillfully informative, interweaving historical figures and facts without losing emotional propulsion and suspense; at the same time, she opts to stretch credulity with an expansive correspondence between Valka and Pasha, the chattiness of which would have seriously endangered their comrades, and whose liberality with locations shows a naive--or incredible--disregard of the censors. But that very correspondence is part of what makes this story accessible to American YA readers--as does, no doubt, its suspenseful, Hollywood ending. deirdre f. baker