Grenade

Product Description Here it is! The hugely anticipated follow-up to Gratz's NYT bestselling, critically acclaimed phenomenon REFUGEE. This is another searing and heart-pounding look at kids making their way through war. A New York Times bestseller!It's 1945, and the world is in the grip of war.Hideki lives on the island of Okinawa, near Japan. When WWII crashes onto his shores, Hideki is drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps to fight for the Japanese army. He is handed a grenade and a set of instructions: Don't come back until you've killed an American soldier.Ray, a young American Marine, has just landed on Okinawa. He doesn't know what to expect -- or if he'll make it out alive. He just knows that the enemy is everywhere.Hideki and Ray each fight their way across the island, surviving heart-pounding ambushes and dangerous traps. But when the two of them collide in the middle of the battle, the choices they make in that instant will change everything.From the acclaimed author of Refugee comes this high-octane story of how fear can tear us apart, and how hope can tie us back together. From School Library Journal Gr 5 Up-In 1945, as the U.S. army neared mainland Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army evacuated its elite troops from Okinawa and left behind a force meant to slow down the Americans in the bloodiest way possible. They recruited the native Okinawans into this army, including teens like Hideki, one of the two narrators of this gripping World War II novel. As Hideki takes his two grenades (one to kill U.S. soldiers and one to kill himself), he is fated to come across the other narrator, a young American soldier, Ray. Based on research and firsthand accounts the author heard while in Okinawa, history comes violently to life in this character-driven, fictionalized account. The battle details are accurate and the characters and the growing sense of the battle's futility are well drawn and poignant. There is some offensive contemporaneous language referring to Japanese people used within the narrative, which is explained in a note at the beginning and in greater detail in the detailed historical note at the end. While this is a chilling, realistic depiction of war, the violence is not glorified or graphically described. VERDICT An excellent World War II novel, best suited for mature readers who can handle the sensitive content and brutal realities of wartime.-Elizabeth Nicolai, Anchorage Public Library, AKα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. Review Praise for Grenade:* "Told by both young men, the story is gripping from start to finish as each encounters ambushes, engages in battles and experiences their devastating aftermath, and mourns the plight of innocent civilians caught in the middle. Impossible to put down, the story unapologetically demonstrates how war affects people emotionally and physically. . . . Action fans will have this flying off the shelves." -- Booklist, starred review"The plot is suspenseful and the character sympathetic." -- Horn Book"Intense and fast-paced, this is a compelling, dark, yet ultimately heartening wartime story." -- Kirkus Reviews"Gratz ( Refugee) depicts the events and fallout of WWII's 'Love Day' while exploring the emotional and cultural damages of war." -- Publishers Weekly"Chilling." -- School Library Journal Praise for Refugee:An Amazon Best Book of the YearA Publishers Weekly Best Book of the YearA Kirkus Best Book of the YearA Texas Bluebonnet Master List selection "Unflinching and sympathetic." -- The New York Times"Grade A: A stunning, poignant novel." -- Entertainment Weekly"Harrowing, timely." -- People Magazine"A gripping, visceral, and hold-your-breath intense story." -- John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in our Stars* "Gratz accomplishes a feat that is nothing short of brilliant, offering a skillfully wrought narrative laced with