Eva-Lis Wuorio (1918–1988)

Read during Spring 2002

A childrens book about the Danish resistance in World War II. The main characters are a Danish family with siblings who married over the rest of Scandinavia. It started out slowly with the invasions of Denmark and Norway but ends much stronger, with the evacuation by the Christian Danish population of most of the Jewish Danish population before the Germans could send them to concentration camps. The growth of the character Thor is also very well done.

An authentic story of the Nazi occupation in Denmark and secret plans to prevent the deportation of Danish Jews to concentration camps

I admit I only read this book because I needed to fulfill the Andorra requirement of my "read a book set in every nation in the world" thing. However, I did find it a sweet children's story with good illustrations. The main character's dilemma (she wants to get a butterfly specimen for her new friend to draw but she doesn't want to kill butterflies) was nicely resolved, and I thought the poverty and rural mountain setting was integrated very well into the story.

Inspired by a dream of Achilles, a little Greek girl dresses boy-like in the jeans her aunt's friend gave her and goes to work to earn money to buy a beautiful present for her aunt and uncle.