The Chosen - Chaim Potok (1967)

Title: The Chosen
Author: Chaim Potok
Genre: Historical fiction
Published: 1967
Number of Pages: 304
Recommended for: 13+
Summary: The best plot summary I've found would be from Sonlight homeschooling curriculum.

"In 1940s Brooklyn, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a secular Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep friendship.

Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, crises of faith, loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love. A deep and thought-provoking work."

My opinion: It has been a while since I have read a novel as good as this one. Despite being fiction, this has made my top six-star worthy list.

This is a story about the friendship of a young Hasidic Jew and a secular Jew. Told in first-person, this takes place during WWII and post-WWII (the creation of Israel)
At first I was wondering why this book didn't have an "official" summary/plot, like most books do. Well, a plot summary would not do the book justice. I mean, the book is about a friendship, but (definitely) not your typical, cheesy story.

The first part of the book profiles how Danny and Reuven's friendship began. The second part profiles their lives in high school and their friendship. The third part profiles their college lives, which is also a major time in history; the creation of modern-day Israel.

This book was truly an amazing book on friendship. From the very first page you knew it was amazing. I LOVE Jewish culture (More the "Reuven" type, not necessarily the "Danny" type. But I am interested in both). The first thing that comes to mind when I think of a genre, "Jewish Appreciation" fits the bill.

I would not recommend this to anyone under 13. Not because of content issues, the book is clean with minimal violence, no sexual content, and some minor profanity. Anyone under 13 would have a very difficult time comprehending it. When I was younger, I hated when people said it was too hard, and I, being stubborn, accepted the challenge. (Who am I to say a kindergarten can't read "The Boxcar Children" if they comprehend it?)
However this book deals with some things teens and up would be able to comprehend. A second-grader with a high school reading level probably won't know what psychology (Danny is interested in psychoanalysis) is, the Holocaust, or even the complexity Hasidism and silence. (There is nothing inappropriate about the book, thou)
Teens/adults: if you don't know what "Shabbat" or "Talmud" means, you're going to have a hard time with this book. I, knowing enough about Jews to get me through most books, struggled. I mean the book is about two religious Jews, one whose life revolves around religion. There's references to Shabbat, Passover, the Torah, Talmud, earlocks, and different prayers. But, don't let this stop you from enjoying this fabulous novel.

Devil At My Heels - Louis Zamperini (2003)

"The Bible speaks of the Word of God as a seed. Sometimes it's planted by the wayside, and nothing grows there. Sometimes it's sown among the thorns and represents the person who makes the decision an then goes back to his old life of bars and chasing women or whatever. A third seed is sown among the rocks. There's sand and dirt between the rocks, and when it rains you'll see a stalk of green coming up. But on the first day with sunshine it wilts because there is no room for roots.
The fourth seed is planted on fertile soil, and finally it takes hold and has a chance to grow and live. That's what happened to me." ~Louis Zamperini

Title: Devil At My Heels: A World War II Hero's Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness

Author: Louis Zamperini

Genre: Historical memoir

Published: 2003

Number of Pages: 292

Recommended for: 13+

Summary: (official) A juvenile delinquent, a world class NCAA miler, a 1936 Olympian, a WWII bombardier: Louis Zamperini had a fuller than most, when it changed in an instant. On May 27, 1943, his B-24 crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Louis and two other survivors found a raft amid the flaming wreckage and waited for rescue. Instead, they drifted two thousand miles for forty-seven days. Their only food: two shark livers and three raw albatross. Their only water: sporadic rainfall. Their only companions: hope and faith-and the ever-present sharks. On the forty-seventh day, mere skeletons close to death, Zamperini and pilot Russell Phillips spotted land-and were captured by the Japanese. Thus began more than two years of torture and humiliation as a prisoner of war.

Louie hugging his mom for the first time in 2 years

Zamperini was threatened with beheading, subject to medical experiments, routinely beaten, hidden in a secret interrogation facility, starved and forced into slave labour, and was the constant victim of a brutal prison guard nicknamed the Bird-a man so vicious that the other guards feared him and called him a psychopath. Meanwhile, the Army Air Corps declared Zamperini dead and President Roosevelt sends official condolences to his family, who never gave up hope that he was alive.
Somehow, Zamperini survived and he returned home a hero. The celebration was short-lived. He plunged into drinking and brawling and the depths of rage and despair. Nightly, the Bird's face leered at him in his dreams. It would take years, but with the love of his wife and the power of faith, he was able to stop the nightmares and the drinking.
A stirring memoir from one of the greatest of the "Greatest Generation," DEVIL AT MY HEELS is a living document about the brutality of war, the tenacity of the human spirit, and the power of forgiveness.

Content Review

Sexual content: Louie recalls shooting a bull's scrotum with a BB gun.

A girl tries to French kiss Louie, and Louie's coach says not to have sex, because of "the emotional involvement that's supposed to come hand in hand with sex" and affects training.

After The Quack beats Louie's friend Bill Harris, Louie describes The Quack looking like he had intercourse with a woman. If you came back drunk in the army air corps, Louis explains how the MPs would "haul you to the infirmary and forcefully inject a 15% Argyrol solution straight up your penis." Because the air corps didn't want anyone catching VD. Louie says, "I heard more than one recruit protest, 'No, I didn't have any sex with any woman.' But who trusts a drunk?"

It is mentioned WWI soldiers put cigars up their anus to get out of their service.

Louie running.

The first interrogation question Louie receives is, "How many girls so you have on your islands to satisfy your military personnel?"
Louie replies (how their men get "satisfied") "They use their willpower and wait until they get home."
The questioner replied, "Japan provides girls on every island to keep our men happy."
Page 140: A guard masturbates and "had intercourse with a duck...all I'll say is the duck died" also on that page, a guard orders Louie to thrust himself into a twenty-something Japanese girl who worked cleaning pots and pans.
An actress has post-war Louie give her a massage, and "she took off most of her clothes".

Profanity: H**l, b*****d, and d**n are used less than 10 times each. S**t, A*s, B***h, and crap are used once or twice. The cruelest guard (before The Bird) was nicknamed S**thead.

Violence: While sleeping in a boxcar, Louie recalls how a sleeping man falls out of the car and is cut in two by the train wheels. The guards use a B-24 pilot's corpse for a mock bayonet drill. The Bird beats Louie's ear with a belt buckle. The Quack nearly beats Bill Harris to death. Violence is what you'd expect in any other war book and the movie will probably be rated R.

Drug content: Before becoming a Christian, Louie is a party animal. He turns to alcohol after the war as a way to wipe The Bird from his memory, only to have his problem become worse.

My opinion: After reading Unbroken, I had had had to read this. I liked both, however Unbroken focused more on Louie's life in captivity whereas this focuses equally on his running career, being a Japanese POW and post-war life. (I mean, Louie's story was interesting before WWII) 
Anyways, the book opens up with a portion of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoner of War Article 2. And the quote, "A smooth sea never made a good sailor." (by anonymous) which describes Louie's situation well. I am in LOVE with Louie's story and have never gotten bored with it. 

Louie Zamperini (left) and Pete Zamperini (right)

Not many juvenile delinquents make it to the Olympics. And even fewer juvenile delinquents who become Olympians meet Hitler or become bombardiers. And, even fewer still become Japanese POWs or set a record for surviving in an inflated raft.

The end is the best part of the book. For some who get offended at the simple mention of Jesus Christ, their least favorite part is the end. Well, I'll make it clear. Louis makes it clear he hates when Christians shove the Bible down other people's throats. He does go more in-depth than Unbroken, but it is NOT pushy or ANYTHING like that. He does, however, never surrender or back down in his faith, which I admire. His book also focuses on his pre-war life more than Unbroken.
I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

P.S. Louie was featured on the show 48 Hours (Race to Freedom) and Shark Week (Adrift: 47 Days With Sharks) as well as the Today show and numerous CBS shows. A movie will be made in 2013, supposedly starring Nicholas Cage as Louie. I like Cage, but he is not my vision of Louie....

Which one should I read - Devil At My Heels or Unbroken?

Devil At My Heels had some things Unbroken didn't, and Unbroken has some things Devil At My Heels didn't. If you enjoy reading, read both! If you don't want to, read Unbroken and if you're a Christian, read the last 80 pages of Devil at My Heels.

If you are a Christian and don't have time to read or don't like to, read Devil At My Heels. If you read either, bring a box of tissues.

The Swiss Courier - Tricia Goyer (2009)

Title: The Swiss Courier: A Novel

Author: Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey

Genre: Historical Christian fiction

Published: 2009

Number of Pages: 324

Recommended for: 13+

Summary: (Official) It is August 1944 and the Gestapo is mercilessly rounding up suspected enemies of the Third Reich. When Joseph Engel, a German physicist working on the atomic bomb, finds that he is actually a Jew, adopted by Christian parents, he must flee for his life to neutral Switzerland. 
Gabi Mueller is a young Swiss-American woman working for the newly formed American Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner to the CIA) close to Nazi Germany. When she is asked to risk her life to safely "courier" Engel out of Germany, the fate of the world rests in her hands. If she can lead him to safety, she can keep the Germans from developing nuclear capabilities. But in a time of traitors and uncertainty, whom can she trust along the way? 

Content Review

Sexual content: It is implied a man and woman have sex, nothing explicit. It is said some Jews have been bribing Germans with sex not to be turned over to the Gestapo. A circumcised man was advised never to show his privates to anyone after the Fürher came to power.

Profanity: None. 

Violence: The book opens with a shooting, and there is other multiple shootings/attacks. A couple purposely drowns themselves to avoid being sent to a concentration camp. A prisoner is brutally beaten, and has had one of his fingernails pulled out. A story of the fourteenth century Black Death is told, how 600 Jewish men, women, and children were burned alive in a barn.

Drug content: Drinking, and cigarettes are mentioned.

My opinion: So, I love Tricia Goyer's From Dust and Ashes and Night Song. Dawn of a Thousand Nights and Chasing Mona Lisa (Swiss Courier's sequel) were very good as well.
I didn't like this for mainly two reasons.
1. I couldn't read half of it, because it was in untranslated German. I know basic German, (yes, no, one, two, three, Mrs., Mr., Miss., Jew, Germany, etc) but there were sentences or small phrases/words that I had no clue what they meant, and the non-translations occurred often enough for me to add that here.
2. I also didn't like how it bounced from one character to another, without rhyme or reason. I mean, NOTHING like From Dust and Ashes, which mainly has 3 POVs, and each which fit together. Here, there's like too many to list; Gabi, Kassler, Baumann, Ernst Müeller, Engel, Dulles, Willy Müeller, being a few of the characters in which the story features their view.
The last chapter (and epilogue) were heart-pounding and something out of an action movie, I LOVED IT!

I would recommend this book.

Letters From Belsen 1945 - Muriel Knox Doherty (2001)

Title: Letters from Belsen 1945: An Australian Nurse's Experiences With the Survivors of War
Author: Muriel Knox Doherty

Genre: Historical memoir
Published: 2001
Number of Pages: 256
Recommended for: 13+
Summary: This is a story of a nurse's point of view on Bergen-Belsen's Displaced Persons (DP) camp. She tells the story of Belsen from April 1945 - November 1945.

Content Review

Sexual content: None, except a reference to circumcision.
Profanity: None. It may have one or two uses of "da*n"
Violence: It's Belsen, 1945. Nothing overly explicit/in-depth. If it were a movie it would possibly be PG-13. The piles of corpses are mentioned, and some Doherty helps with the aftermath and the survivors, not the actual liberation-liberation (April 15)
Drug content: Drinking, and cigarettes are mentioned.

My opinion: Sometimes I would recommend certain books (i.e. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom) to anyone, this is one I would only recommend to those interested in anything medical related or WWII, and I'm strongly interested in both. It is pretty detailed, but not too boring. One reason I decided to read this book was because I am interested in the medical aspect of Bergen-Belsen; the liberation was known as one of the biggest reliefs in medical history. Pages 80-120 are kind of boring, but other than that, it is a very good, clean book.

I would recommend this book.