2011 book 326

Nevil Shute's Pied Piper
Shute's A Town Like Alice is one of my favorite books, but for some reason I'd never read any of his other works. This one has a similar structure to Alice--someone's harrowing 1940s wartime adventures are being told after the fact to some random English person (in this case, an old man is telling his recent adventures to a member of his club during an air raid--this book was actually published during WWII). Anyway, this is really a powerful story about an Englishman on a fishing trip in France who, as the Germans invade, prepares to return home--but is asked by a married couple to bring their children with him. As he makes his way across France, he somehow collects other children, but finds himself right in the war zone. How will they make it out???

As a side note, interesting commentaries on Jews here, especially considering it was published in 1942. Clearly Shute knew the Germans were targeting Jewish people/putting them in death camps of some sort and he thinks it's appalling (it's mentioned several times), though one of his heroes is very mildly anti-Semitic (well, there's one comment involving the Jews/money stereotype) and one Jewish child is completely bloodthirsty (understandable, in context). Still a very strong work though--I kind of wished for a sequel. A-.