Till the Break of Day

This book has always stayed in my mind, probably because it's not your usual memoir of this time period, and because Maia is such a spirited nonconformist tomboy. Everything you expect in a WWII-era memoir is all but lacking here. Maia and her family get on a train leaving Poland the very day the Nazis invade, eventually getting to the temporary safety of France, then being smuggled into Vichy France after the Nazis invade France as well, then on into Spain, Portugal, and finally setting sail for America. They're not living in a Nazi-occupied country for very long; they're not even Jewish or hiding Jews or other enemies of the Nazis, so that expected angle of a book set in this time period is gone. I've always liked how Maia and her older brother Zbyszek aren't living in fear and terror of the Nazis once they invade France; they're out there playing war with other Polish refugee children, with a stash of weapons found by the fleeing French Army, slashing tires, taking an oath to never speak a word of French (at least while they're in France) and to not speak to any French person, in any language, so long as the war goes on, and engaging in all kinds of attempted sabotage. Maia even counterfeits money when they're in Portugal. And when they're fleeing Warsaw in the beginning, Maia's oppositional streak shines through when she alone refuses to take cover when a bomber flies right over the train they were on and shoots all around her as she's standing right out in the open. My favourite part is when she and Zbyszek have snuck one of the abandoned guns and some ammo into their apartment and are about to start mowing down the conquering Germans from their upper-level porch when their mother sees and wrestles it away from them. Maia's an incredible heroine in an incredible and unique book.