Courage & Defiance: Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survivors in World War II Denmark

Gr 9 Up—As the book's subtitle indicates, this narrative is a chronological collection of personal stories of the daring exploits of the courageous and (mostly) young people who fought German occupiers from the shadows, in many cases defying the Danish government's collaboration with Hitler. Hopkinson explains that this book isn't a complete history of World War II Denmark, and she focuses on a small group of people, most men, who waged a secret war against Germany by establishing an intelligence and resistance force with British aid, carrying out individual or small-group acts of sabotage or printing or distributing underground newspapers. Well-documented chapters include background about the war and the lives of the resistance fighters and incorporate lengthy quotes from published accounts and memoirs, giving readers the opportunity to understand the fighters' motivations, reactions, and fears. Hopkinson also describes the spontaneous and altruistic efforts of countless Danes who first sheltered and then relocated Denmark's small Jewish population to neutral Sweden. The strongest and most moving section of the book is about the arrests, imprisonment, and concentration camp internments of captured fighters, who found their enemy more evil than they could have imagined. The text is supplemented with large period photos of resistance fighters and wartime Denmark. This book is generally well written, and although it lacks the drama and teen focus found in Phillip Hoose's outstanding The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club (Farrar, 2015), its coverage of an often overlooked topic makes it a solid option.