Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II (Operation Kinderspion)
When Adam Gidwitz, the author of this rousing adventure story, was a child, he used to lie awake at night and wonder if he could ever have escaped Nazi Germany.
“I would imagine scenario after scenario,” he tells his reader. “But… the odds of survival were just too atomically small.” His overwhelming question about Nazi Germany was: Why?
Max in the House of Spies doesn’t answer that question (and who could?), but it offers readers aged 8 to 12—and older—a wealth of information, serious thought, and just plain fun.
This is the story of Max Bretzfeld, an eleven-year-old refugee sent alone in 1939 from his home in menacing Berlin to safety in England. But that’s not all. Not only is Max a genius, and especially brilliant with radios, but he is destined to live with an English family of actual, authentic spies… and he has two magical beings living on his shoulders.
Imperceptible to all but Max, one, named Stein, is a dybbuk (a mischievous “spirit of the Jewish people” who sounds like a vaudeville comedian) and the other, Berg, is a kobold (a more traditional German goblin). Max and the spirits immediately confront big, bad problems, including war and antisemitism, which is forthrightly presented to middle-grade readers.
This book is a hilarious page-turner that successfully raises, but does not solve, the problem of evil. It’s also a well-researched historical novel that eventually sends Max to British spy school. He’s trained for undercover work in Nazi Germany, smuggled back to Berlin… and then something truly awful happens, leaving the reader hanging.
Quick! Write a sequel, Mr. Gidwitz! Please!
