that jaclyn moriarty
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-eight years and a million words
I've been reading a book called "The Whispering Wars" to my daughter. I have to say, this Jaclyn Moriarty can really write. In this prequel to the original book that Grandma got for The Boy, the kids have been interred in a work camp where they’ve been forced to work in a mine. Some of the smaller kids (the enemy have puts kids as young as four into this camp) are dying of a kind of lung rot / silicosis caused by the semi-magical ore they’re mining. Three children have now died and a fourth kid, who was taken from the same orphanage as one of the twelve year old heroes early in the book is now on his death-bed. What I'm saying is that it manages to very carefully walk a line between kids’ story and a holocaust tale.