When learning or exploring the topic of World War II, it is very helpful for young adult readers to have stories of first-person experiences to fully grasp certain concepts and events. Both nonfiction and historical fiction have the power to teach readers about this devastating period of history.
“After researching my last novel, listening to hours and hours of oral histories from the survivors of World War II, I discovered just how much I wanted to present what is often an unseen aspect of war: the aftermath,” says author Sharon Cameron, whose new book Bluebird tells the story of a survivor navigating the aftermath of World War II while searching for justice.
“Even a small glimpse of what war looked like for both the defeated and the victors shows how often ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ are not as clear-cut as we would like to think, like our own government’s involvement in Project Bluebird,” says Cameron. “History is nuanced, and I believe that stories like Bluebird help us to acknowledge both the triumphs and the failures — so we can repeat one and never, ever again repeat the other.”
Bluebird delves into the story of Eva, who travels from war-torn Berlin to New York City in 1946, holding the key to the sinister Project Bluebird, a horrific experiment that occurred within the concentration camps of Europe.
