The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2015. Middle grade nonfiction.Phillip Hoose has done it again! In his award winning Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, he brought forward a person and time in history to shed new light on one person's fight for equality and justice. In this new title, Hoose shines a light on Knud Pedersen and his brother, Danish boys who became involved in secret sabotage to slow and thwart German operations during World War II. The brothers and their friends decided that if the adults were not going to fight for their country, they would. But, as boys with only bicycles, with curfews of their own, and with limited funds, what could they do? Actually, their exploits and eventual imprisonment make a truly inspiring tale.
On a trip to Denmark in 2000, Hoose discovered snippets about Pedersen and the Churchill Club. He contacted Pedersen about working on a book, but a contract was underway with someone else. Years later, Hoose tried again. This time, Pedersen not only talked with Hoose, but worked to make this nonfiction book a reality. While it reads like an adventure tale, the book is filled with photographs, drawings, newspaper headlines, and comics that show what life was like during the war and the effect the boys had on it. Hoose does a masterful job of sprinkling just enough text boxes to explain difficult topics that may need more explanation. He tells, at the end, what happened to each of these heroic boys. A selected bibliography illuminates other works that avid history buffs will want to consult.
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