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Girl in the Blue Coat

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Update 9/28/18: I am now an affiliate with Z Publishing House. I do get a small commission from any purchases through this link ( http://www.zpublishinghouse.com?rfsn=1831564.e6264) if anyone is interested in some anthologies of emerging writers.

 Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse is published by Little, Brown, and Company.This nontraditional mystery won the Edgar Award for Best YA Mystery.

This book is set during World War II in the Netherlands and follows a girl named Hanneke who smuggles extra rations for her boss. What starts as a normal day shirking the law under the Nazi regime turns into a hunt for a missing girl. One of her customers confesses to Hanneke that she's been hiding a Jewish girl who has somehow vanished from her hiding place. At first Hanneke refuses but she starts looking for clues, eventually getting pulled into the underground resistance and witnessing the atrocities of the war and has to come to terms with her past and what she's become in the face of the war.

The best part about Girl in the Blue Coat is how it deals with civilians instead of soldiers. Hanneke  has created strict rules for herself in order to stay out of trouble. She's lost both her best friend and her love. She struggles to help her family survive by working as an assistant for the funeral home and smuggling. Avoiding soldiers is an every day occurance for her and all these things come together in her search for Mirjam. 

Hanneke's memories of her boyfriend Bas help the reader to understand who she was before the war and we can see how she wants to be like that again but the reality of her world doesn't allow her to do that yet. Overall, this is a nice, easy read that deals with a serious topic without becoming too graphic.  That being said, I did feel like the ending lacked the emotional punch Hesse was going for. I'm not sure if this was because of a lack of clues throughout that I could have used to reach the conclusion on my own or if the writing started to fall flat once the girl in the blue coat is found. I also have a tendency to dissociate when it comes to war stories-- I can't watch any war movies or read a lot of war-time historical fiction or even have conversations about military and wars without my eyes glazing over a bit-- so there is a chance the ending is great but I'm just not able to enjoy it.

Girl in the Blue Coat is a very good historical fiction that young adults should find easily approachable. It has a good perspective on what it's like to be a civilian in a war setting. Discussions at the end of the book provide some conversation points for anyone who wants or needs to talk about what they've read, though I do wish more questions would relate more to the historical and social realities and less just about what the characters do, though I get these are just some starting points for further discussion.

While I will not likely read this again anytime soon, I do recommend this book. High school age, adults, and possibly some mature middle school students will be able to appreciate this look at history.

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