Michael P. Spradlin

EducatingParents.org rating: Approved

Historical Fiction: 1941-1945

Christina's Review on Goodreads.com -
This novel is intended for mature upper elementary readers and middle school readers. My daughter, who is 10 and therefore the intended audience, really enjoyed this book. She insisted I read it as soon as she was finished with it. I think that, had I read this closer to her age, I would've enjoyed it a lot more as well. I really enjoyed that there are more and more age appropriate historical fictions being offered to younger readers. This one focuses on a point in WW2 that you don't often hear about as much as others. But, for me, this was a hard book to get through, not because of any atrocities happening, but because of the pacing and somewhat repetitive dialogue.

The march, which is described as a focal point of this novel, is somewhat glossed over. The majority of this novel takes place during the soldiers captivity. For all the brutality that was going on throughout (I'm sure it was also toned down brutality for the younger readers), the ending was just a little too smooth and happily ever after to be believable by me. In the author's afterword, he did go into some of the realities about what it was like for soldiers returning home after the war, but the fact that it wasn't tied into the story itself left me dissatisfied by the ending.

Throughout the captivity and even before it, everyone's dialogue just seemed very repetitive, which caused me to quickly lose interest and set this aside for other reading materials. Because of that, it took me quite a while to finish this. The last bit of the book I mainly skimmed through. So, would I recommend it? To younger readers, yes. I love that my daughter reads books from multiple genres, including historical fiction and I do think it's important for younger generations to learn what they can about the history of our world and the many different points in time throughout it, whether they were good or bad. But for adults? It may not hold your interest and there are far better historical fictions out there. Honestly, even researching the Death March online before I began this book held my interest more.… (meer)

(3.5 / 5)

This is the final installment of the series-long story, the kind of series that you really need to start from the beginning. In some ways, it's a satisfying conclusion to the story, as answers are provided, some more surprising than others. Some pieces fell into place that made the identity of Number One fairly obvious to me and, in fact, made me realize maybe I should have guessed it sooner. But I didn't, and I doubt most of the kids in the target age group would either, which makes for an exciting story.

There were some things that happened that I didn't really think made much sense or weren't necessary. And the supernatural element that developed throughout the series did not have a satisfactory explanation for my preference. By that I mean that it was fully explained, but the root of the supernatural abilities didn't really make sense. I can't explain very well without spoiling it, but it just sort of seemed like the author(s) didn't put as much thought into the backstory as they should have. However, since the series was a solid 4 stars for me all throughout until this book, which was only half a star less than that, I think it's well worth a read for anyone who is at all interested in the genre or series synopsis. I'm glad I read this series, though I doubt I'll re-read it.… (meer)