To take just one example, early on Verity and Maddie swap lists of their 10 worst fears. It is thrilling, moving, engaging, and poignant by turns and beautifully, sinuously plotted and written. It is listed as teenage/crossover, but I would recommend it to anyone over 14. This is the best book I have read so far this year. I confess I was sceptical at first about an American author writing a cross-class British friendship that would convince me, and I was nervous of clumsy feet treading on my fierce British pride in the SOE. But is she really broken? The second part of the narrative is taken up by Maddie, who flew her friend to France, but was shot down and finds herself sheltered by the Resistance. The bright, fearless heroine that we admire and laugh with and love transforms back into this broken woman, delaying her execution by pitiful betrayals of all she has lived for. Her voice takes us away from the hideous Gestapo world into bike-rides over the Pennines, night-flights and escapades – but we always return. Will she write what she will not say? Verity’s narrative tells of her friendship with Maddie, one of the few women pilots in the war. They have brutalized her, broken her, but they still think she may have some more to tell them. Writing is the small indulgence that has been allowed to her. Printz Honor, 2013.The first half of the story is told by ‘Verity’, who is being interrogated by the Gestapo.

YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2013.Īwards note Michael L.

USBBY Outstanding International Book, 2013.

School Library Journal Best Books, 2012.Notable Books for a Global Society, 2013.Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult, 2013.

Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth, 2012.Language eng Summary In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can Member of World War, 1939-1945 - Juvenile fiction.true Great Britain - History - George VI, 1936-1952.France - History - German occupation, 1940-1945 - Juvenile fiction.true France - History - German occupation, 1940-1945.Label Code name Verity Title Code name Verity Statement of responsibility Elizabeth Wein Creator

Code name verity cover