  | Max in the land of lies (Operation Kinderspion) Author: Gidwitz, Adam | |
| Price: $23.78 | ||
Summary:
With his British spy training complete and forged papers in hand, Max's missions have begun in Berlin. But nothing is as he expected. His parents are missing. Nazi intelligence is watching him. And the lines between lies and truth are becoming more blurred every day. Max will need every tool at his disposal to make it out of Berlin alive.
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: MG Reading Level: 4.90 Points: 9.0 Quiz: 554754 |
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (+) (01/01/25)
Booklist (+) (12/01/25)
The Hornbook (+) (00/05/25)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 02/01/2025 *Starred Review* In 2024's Max in the House of Spies, 13-year-old Jewish German Max was evacuated from Berlin to London via the Kindertransport where he—accompanied by two little, wise-cracking supernatural beings, Berg the kobold and Stein the dybbuk—was taken in by a prominent family and, thanks to his genius with radios, recruited as a spy by British intelligence. In the second volume of this duology, Max returns to Berlin with two missions: infiltrate the Funkhaus, the Nazi center of radio propaganda, and find his missing parents. Gidwitz has managed to add an essential new tale to the canon of WWII fiction, delivering what is at once an engrossing spy-thriller and an appropriately devastating story of a boy coming of age in an impossibly brutal world. As Max enmeshes himself in the Funkhaus, he struggles to make sense of the machinations of Nazi propaganda and the ongoing assault of lies driving the war forward. Several narrative risks—including Berg and Stein (a critical element of emotional support), the on-page appearances of Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler, and a stunning time jump right at Max's emotional climax—pay off tremendously, elevating this from a well-researched piece of entertainment to an exquisite work of craft and a profoundly sensitive guide to the horrors of Nazi Germany. An at-times buoyant, always captivating, and ultimately heartrending masterpiece of middle-grade historical fiction. - Copyright 2025 Booklist.
