Girl in the Blue Coat

Amazing read! Wow. Makes you think, a lot. I quickly started caring about Hanneke and admired her determination and courage. War brings out so many different parts of our humanity. Hanneke reminds us of the need to harden oneself and look for every way to survive. The story is written so well that you feel pangs in the heart with agonizing loss and hope. It is beautiful that our basic need to love and be loved does not disappear. Ollie is an unsung hero. He is good to the core and I so very much liked him. Judith and Mina are wonderful and thankfully people like Mina left us evidence of the atrocities. I appreciated all the characters and the detail given to them, their roles, and to their surroundings. These teenagers and young adults had to tackle issues and situations that are too complicated for adults. The story was true to emotions dominating until someone managed to steady the situation and be a voice of reason. Anger, frustration, fear, forgiveness, love, bravery and much more were well portrayed. It was incredible how well written the story is and how I did not want to put it down. There were many twists and turns with quite a few surprises. This book is not only for the YA readers. It's a must read, especially if you enjoy historical fiction.

Hanneke lives in Holland with her mother and father. She’s a young woman who has lost her boyfriend in the war, who works as the undertaker’s receptionist and also helps the undertaker with black market dealings. Her jobs support her family. On one of her deliveries, an elderly woman confides in Hanneke that she’d been hiding a Jewish teenage girl, in her home, in a secret compartment behind her pantry. The girl is missing and there’s no evidence of how she left the house. The woman pleads for Hanneke to help her find the teenage girl, Mirjam. Hanneke reluctantly agrees to help so she starts searching for any information she can find on Mirjam. As she’s searching, she inadvertently ends up at a resistance group meeting and becomes accidentally involved in a delivery of a Jewish baby, to an adoptive family, after the baby’s family had been detained by the Nazis. Hanneke learns about all of the ways that young adults around her have been helping with the resistance and she sees how selfish she was by keeping to herself and not becoming involved but that changes during her search for Mirjam. The young adults work together to find Mirjam and help everyone they can in this inspiring story of young heroism and perseverance. A wonderful character building historical fiction book, 4 stars!

This is a book I am excited to put on my school shelves. Hanneke is a young girl in Amsterdam in the middle of Nazi occupation. She smuggles goods to help out. One request will set her on a dangerous journey. Hanneke has been asked to locate a young Jewish girl named Mirjam. For this assignment she will need to get help from a resistance group. The book is true to WWII and the horrors of the Nazis. One reason I find this such an important book for my school shelves is that we have a holocaust unit. I try to provide great books that accurately tell of the holocaust events. So many people sided with the Nazis, not because they hated the Jews but because they wanted to improve their own position in life. Some were just bystanders who didn’t agree but didn’t want to get involved. This book shows so many sides to this war. As a word of caution it is full of the violence that so many experienced. This type of history should never be watered down. I applaud this author for telling a story that is authentic and exactly what kids and adults should learn. We need more books like this that show the importance of resistance groups and people like Hanneke.

What a lovely book! I’ve always been fascinated with stories occurred during the world war (fiction or non-fiction), so I got hooked the moment I read the plot. It tells the story of Hanneke, a Dutch teenager who tries to go on with her life after the death of her boyfriend. She supports her family through working as a receptionist for the undertaker and as a profiteer in the black market. German soldiers had already invaded Netherlands, but some people, including Hanneke, are clueless about how the Germans are treating the Jews. When an old woman asks her to find a missing person who has been secretly hiding in her house, Hanneke suddenly becomes involved in the resistance to help Jewish victims to safety. I love the character build-up in this story as Hanneke, whose flaws and scars came from the heartache she experienced during the war. Her journey to finding the missing Jew also becomes her journey to self-realization that in this war, even a small act of kindness and bravery counts. It is a lovely coming-of-age story about friendship, young love and acts of bravery during the war.

In the midst of World War II, a girl makes a living smuggling goods to others in her city. Lipstick, food, coffee, you name it. But one day a customer as a request for something she has never found before. A girl. And when her path becomes intertwined with people from her past, will they together be able to find the girl before she is gone forever? This book was pretty good. I love historical fiction books, especially during the WWII time period, so I have enjoyed books such as The Girl from the Train (or is it the Girl on the Train?), Number the Stars when I was younger, Night, etc. This book had an interesting storyline I had not seen before, hitting off of the fact that certain goods were rare and people still wanted them, hence how the girl in the blue coat made her living. The writing was decent, could have been better, and some things were not necessary. If you do not pay attention things can get a little confusing. There was suspense throughout the book, characters were ok, but I did not like how it did not delve deeper into WWII and remained on the surface about a lot of things. SO, recommending this to younger YA readers, maybe middle school and up because of this and the writing not being super advanced. Parental Guidance: no curse words, sex/nudity, no extreme violence or graphic scenes, etc. Some people might want to know there is one character who turns out to be gay so some might keep that in mind when allowing a younger child to read the book depending on the parent/adult

I listened to this audio book a few months ago and really enjoyed everything about this book. Because it's been a while, I can't remember all the details and won't leave a full synopsis here. I will say the story involves the reader and touches on some more serious topics, but is entirely appropriate even for a young adult audience. Sure it's classified as a young adult book, but I've read some of those other ones and don't think they've been classified quite right. I don't think you'll be too concerned about this one. As for recommendations, this may have been the first book I recommended to my wife that she actually really enjoyed. She's said she's liked others, but this is the first one she really seemed to get excited about. I think it even passed her book club worthy criteria. Unfortunately, the library doesn't have many copies available so if you might as well just buy it. ;)

I give it 3 and 1/2 stars. As my review headline states, the research and storytelling are excellent. It was mostly a great tale, well paced and involving, but there's a little too much Anne Frank in some of the plotline. I think the author could have avoided that. Apart from that, there is much to like about the characters and the mystery that unfolds. I think it would be easy for young adults to relate to the characters and their conflicts a nd feelings, even though the characters are involved in the Resistance during the Nazi occupation and not living in the relatively safe contemporary world in the U.S. And the scenes in this novel are so well drawn that they easily appeared in my mind.

The was quality was great read and it loved it

This was bought for my teenage daughter - she ,over it.

My parents both grew up in the Netherlands and lived there during this time in history. The names, language, and setting was so well described that I could imagine my parents there. I remember my mom telling us that they never blamed the German people, as they were just trying to survive a war they didn't want either. It was true to the stories they told us, without being so horrific that I couldn't read it. I highly recommend it!

Sehr schönes und mitreißendes Buch, das viel über die damalige Zeit vermittelt.

Average

A story about young love, pain and heartbreak that is written with kindness and perfection