Stolen Child, Making Bombs for Hitler & Underground Soldier

It happens every night.  I climb up onto Jacqueline's bed, between her giant stuffies, and read to her.  Often I read a picture book, my favourite genre.  But I have also read her chapter books like The Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables.

Right now we are in the middle of another series, this one by Brantford author Marsha Skrypuch.  The first book, Stolen Child, was published in 2010.  The main character Nadia emigrates from Germany to Canada. As she settles into her new home, she struggles with flashbacks in which her name was "Gretchen".  Bit by bit, it comes out that Nadia is really Larissa, a Ukrainian girl.  One day, she was kidnapped by the Nazis and given to a German family to "adopt", part of the Nazi's Lebensborn program.  Somehow, with the help of a young woman and her husband, she was able to escape and immigrate to Canada.

Book number two is called "Making Bombs for Hitler" (2012).  It focuses on Larissa's sister, Lida, also kidnapped by the Nazis, who ends up in a concentration camp.  At first she is employed in the laundry room where she uses her sewing skills.  But later she is moved to a factory where she builds bombs.  With rumors of the Allies turning the tide of the war, the young workers start to sabotage the bombs.  Life is dangerous for the prison mates who dodge American bombs as they work.  Finally, Lida's work camp is liberated and she starts to search for her sister.

Book number three is called "Underground Soldier" (2014).  It focuses on Luka, who works as an Ostarbeiter (slave labourer) in Eastern Europe along with Lida. Desperate to escape the labour camp, Luka hides in a truck under a pile of dead bodies and escapes.  He joins the Ukrainian resistance which is caught between advancing Nazis in the west and Soviets in the east. At war's end, Luka must decide whether to follow Lida to Canada or stay and find his lost mother.