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Recommendations: Books, Film/TV, Music
Under a War-Torn Sky
Under a War-Torn Sky and A Troubled Peace tell the story of a B-24 bomber pilot who survives bailing out over Nazi-occupied France and then returns, following liberation, to find a young Resistance boy who saved him. Across a War-Tossed Sea is a companion home-front novel about two young Londoners who escape the Blitz to stay in Virginia with the family of Henry's high school sweetheart, Patsy.
Other recommended reading and films, focusing on the war against Hitler, include:
Books (Fiction):
Holocaust: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank; Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli; Night by Elie Wiesel (for 14 and older)
The American Experience: The Last Mission by Harry Mazer; The Matthews Men by William Geroux; The Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene; Homefront by Doris Gwaltney; The War Outside by Monica Hesse; Code Girls by Liza Mundy
Resistance: The Light in Hidden Places and Artifice by Sharon Cameron; Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein; Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse; Number the Stars by Lois Lowry; Twenty and Ten by Claire Huchet Bishop; Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan; For Freedom: The Story of a French Spy by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley; The Boys from St. Petri by Bjarne Reuter
The German Experience: Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes; Soldier X by Don L. Wulffson; The Book Thief by Markus Zusak; The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman
For High School Readers And Adult Readers: Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky; The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir; Catch-22 by Joseph Heller; The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill; Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly; The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah; Code Name Hélène by Ariel Lawhon; The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Books (Nonfiction):
History/Narrative: Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; The Good Fight: How WWII Was Won by Stephen Ambrose; Vive La France: The French Resistance During WWII by Robert Green; A Thousand Sisters by Elizabeth Wein; A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead; Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynne Olson; D-Day Girls by Sarah Rose;
Aircraft: The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany by Stephen Ambrose; A Wing and a Prayer by Harry H. Crosby; Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys by Donald Miller
Resistance Memoirs (for high school and adult readers): The Autobiography of The Woman the Gestapo Called the White Mouse by Nancy Wake; The Diary and Memoir of Virginia Albert-Lake (American in French Resistance); Outwitting the Gestapo by Lucie Aubrac; The War: A Memoir by Marguerite Duras
Photo Collections: Lee Miller’s War (Allied war correspondent/photographer, 1944-45); Life Magazine: Our Finest Hour, the Triumphant Spirit of the WWII Generation
Film/TV:
Bombers and crews: Masters of the Air (Apple TV); Twelve O’Clock High; Memphis Belle; Tuskegee Airmen
Resistance: Charlotte Gray; Paris Underground; Julia; Valkyrie; Female Agents; Resistance (PBS); Transatlantic; A French Village (French BBC); World at War (BBC)
Civilians: Casablanca; The Best Years of Our Lives; Au Revoir, Les Enfants
Holocaust: Life is Beautiful; Lacombe, Lucein; the miniseries Holocaust (starring Meryl Streep); TV movie Playing for Time (Vanessa Redgrave); The Pianist; Schindler's List
Combat: Saving Private Ryan; The Longest Day; The Great Escape; Band of Brothers; Dunkirk; The Six Triple Eight; Fury
Documentaries: PBS/Ken Burns The War; Anne Frank Remembered; The Eye of Vichy: France’s Shocking Collaboration with the Nazis; Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII; The World at War; The Nazis: A Warning from History; The Last Best Hope (PBS, about a flyer save by the Belgian Resistance).
Hear Music Henry Refers to in A Troubled Peace and Under A War-Torn Sky:
“Straighten Up and Fly Right”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fVaP6dM1fs
"Accentuate the Positive"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3jdbFOidds
“It's been a long, long time”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPP6FbbT4UI
The Mills Brothers performing “Till Then”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPdidRreduM
“When the Lights Go On Again”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzlFaY0s_QI
Louis Armstrong and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvKEzc3JXo4
“You are my sunshine”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDNDELFF1ok
Hear More WWII Favorites:
Andrew Sisters "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcyiC79l910&ab_channel=BleiddwenLupin
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8of3uhG1tCI
Vera Lynn “We’ll Meet Again.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHcunREYzNY
Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR3K5uB-wMA
Benny Goodman “Sing, Sing, Sing, (With a Swing)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mJ4dpNal_k
Count Basie and his band 1941
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYLbrZAko7E
Duke Ellington – “It don't mean a thing” (1943)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQpZT3GhDg
Johnny Mercer “The GI Jive”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhBOlkHm-tM&list=RDGhBOlkHm-tM&start_radio=1
Watch Some Swing Dancing:
