Middle

Into the Arms of Strangers (2000)

Icon:

Academy Award-winning documentary uses archival footage and interviews to tell the story of the rescue operation that transported ten-thousand Jewish children from Nazi Germany and certain death, to Great Britain just prior to World War II.

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

01:57

The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century (2007)

Icon:

World War II, we have been told all our lives, was our greatest triumph, the moment when the forces of light—the Western democracies and the U.S.S.R.—prevailed over the forces of darkness—the Nazis and the other Axis powers. It was a conflict that began in Europe in September 1939 and ended with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in August 1945. Or did it?

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

03:00

The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century

The War: 1941-1945 (2006)

Icon:

THE WAR, a seven-part documentary series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who become caught up in one of the greatest cataclysms in human history.

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

15:00

Road to War (2005)

Icon:

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into the most devastating war of the 20th century. America's diplomatic road to war and the wartime mobilization, including the internment of Japanese Americans is analyzed.

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

00:30

World at War (2005)

Icon:

Turning to diplomacy and military operations, the reasons for Allied success are assessed. The holocaust, use of atomic bombs, and how the war transformed the world and the place of the United States in it are examined.

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

00:30

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (Abridged Nonfiction)

Icon:

More than 50 years after its first publication, Doubleday's definitive edition of Anne Frank's famous diary generated an extraordinary amount of excitement when it was published in early 1995.

Author:

Anne Frank, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

1080L

Length:

05:58

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (Abridged Nonfiction)

All but My Life (Unabridged)

Icon:

A classic of Holocaust literature, Gerda Weissmann Klein's celebrated memoir tells the moving story of a young woman's three frightful years as a slave laborer of the Nazis and her miraculous liberation. All But My Life stands as the ultimate lesson in humanity, hope, and friendship.

Author:

Gerda Weissmann Klein

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

780L

Length:

09:37

The Book Thief (Unabridged)

Icon:

It's just a small story really, about, among other things, a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.

Author:

Markus Zusak

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Lexile:

730L

Length:

13:56

Sarah's Key (Unabridged)

Icon:

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a 10 year-old girl, is arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Author:

Tatiana de Rosnay

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

HL610L

Length:

09:56

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (Unabridged)

Icon:

More than 50 years after its first publication, Doubleday's definitive edition of Anne Frank's famous diary generated an extraordinary amount of excitement when it was published in early 1995.

Author:

Anne Frank

Grade Level:

Middle

High

Length:

09:56

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (Unabridged)

Going Solo (Unabridged)

Icon:

The fascinating story of Roald Dahl's life continues in Going Solo, a marvelous evocation of the author's wartime exploits. As a pilot in World War II, Roald Dahl had some wonderfully exciting -- and frighteningly near-death -- experiences including encounters with the enemy, battles with deadly snakes, and incredible dogfights.

Author:

Roald Dahl

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

1080L

Length:

05:36

The Boy Who Dared (Unabridged)

Icon:

When 16-year-old Helmuth Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason.

Author:

Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Grade Level:

Middle

Lexile:

760L

Length:

04:12

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Icon:

Copies: 29

Chizuko came to visit her friend Sadako in the hospital. She had a piece of gold paper that she had cut into a large square. "Watch!" she said, and she folded the paper over and over, and it turned into a beautiful crane.

"If a sick person folds one thousand paper cranes," Chizuko said, "the gods will grant her wish and make her well again." The girl handed the crane to Sadako. "Here's your first one."

Author:

Eleanor Coerr

Lexile:

630L

Milkweed

Icon:

Copies: 5

He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.

Author:

Jerry Spinelli

Lexile:

510L