Every now and then I discover a historical fiction book that I just want to shout out to all my teaching colleagues and this series has three!
I wish I'd known about these books when I was teaching WWII. This is exactly the kind of accurate, detailed and comprehensive historical fiction my 7th and 8th grade students would've loved.
They address a number of 8th grade Common Core Social Studies for WWII, including S2.C8.PO2-4, and 7th/8th grade English Language Arts standards and, I think because the publisher is Hyperion / Disney, have absolutely fantastic Educator's Guides that teachers can use as the basis for lesson plans.
Under a War-Torn Sky is about an American bomber co-pilot who is shot down over German-occupied France during WWII. He is then smuggled out by the French Resistance and several maquis cells. His journey is harrowing and a nail-biter, to the very end. You never know if he's going to make it out alive. He's an older MC, one a bit older than your middle school students, who will nevertheless identify with his ongoing internal struggle to make decisions that will make his father proud.
L.M. Elliott's web page provides several 8th/9th grade lesson plans for teaching this one, including:
And the UK publisher, Usborne, provides a GREAT list of links for learning more about WWII bomber pilots and planes, the French Resistance, and the Great Depression.
In addition, there's a $2 quick write activity listed on Teachers Pay Teachers for this book.
Across a War-Tossed Sea is excellent for teaching WWII standards that touch on America's response to the war (commonly referred to as the home front in the Common Core) and English Language Arts POV (point of view, or perspective) standards.
C8.S1.PO 4. Explain how the following factors affected the U.S. home front during World War II: a) war bond drives b) war industry c) women and minorities in the work force d) rationing e) internment of Japanese-, German-, and Italian -Americans
A pair of British brothers survive a harrowing trip across the Atlantic to be taken in by an American family to weather the war in America, while London is bombed by the Luftwaffe. This story features so many things your students wouldn't be aware of, just through use of the British POV (point of view, or perspective).
The boys are teased mercilessly for being British and they get into scrapes because they misunderstand American English and racial norms of the time period. They struggle to understand why Americans vilify the British in our colonial history in school. The boys also participate in so many things Americans were asked to do on the homefront -- collecting tin and rubber, rationing for foodstuffs, etc. There is even a small German soldier POW camp near the farm where the boys live that figures into the ending.
And finally, the third book, A Troubled Peace, Elliott takes us back to Henry's story, the American co-pilot, after the end of WWII. He's back in the US, but having a hard time adjusting to living in peace-time (he has PTSD, known as battle fatigue), and decides to go back to France and see how all the people who helped him survive fared. Most do not make it. Using his best marble shooter, which he gifted to the son of a woman who helped him, he finds the boy, now completely orphaned, and brings him home to America and begins to work through his war experiences.
The publisher this book in the series, Harper Collins, does not offer free CC-aligned teaching resources, but does offer this wonderful essay by the author discussing how her father's stories influenced the fiction she wrote. Elliott's author page also offers a sample lesson plan for this text.
