I'm not really sure what age group this book is best for. On the one hand, even though it is a WWII story, there is no material in it that a young child could not handle, except perhaps the suicide of a side character by taking pills. The rest of the book is very tasteful and age-appropriate. On the other hand, there are some big words for little readers, even a couple that I, as an adult, had to look at twice. There are several phrases in French. As an adult reader, I found that the book often 'talked down to' little children in a way I found irritating. It also had a few places of word play that work in English but would not in the German the children are speaking. Kids would not notice that, but it took me out of the story a little. Those points brought this down from five stars to only 3.5 for me.

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