Annotation:“I begin with the young…What material! With them I can make a new world.” Adolf Hitler exploited the idealism of millions of Germany’s young people to fuel his evil master plan for global domination.
Justification for Nomination:
The collective voices of these young witnesses and victims create a visceral intensity to this aspect of Hitler’s calculated evil that is rarely addressed in the literature. The narrative threads, beginning with initial capsule biographies, immediately connect the reader to an authentic sense of the experience and events and work very effectively to propel the chronology. The skillful and solid writing is echoed by powerful, at times absolutely haunting photos, and supported by stellar research and documentation. This is outstanding nonfiction that goes a long way in addressing a question I’ve heard asked by many young people: how could the Germans have allowed this to happen? With this detailed immersion into the history, they are virtually walking in the shoes of those who, at the time, would be their peers and have a deeper understanding of how idealism can be manipulated and make the innocent unwitting accomplices to evil.
Genre Category: Nonfiction
Annotation: Two wrestlers, two different worlds, one destiny.
Justification for Rejection:
Initially, I thought the beginning was a little too shaky and somewhat contrived to make the best category, but darned if this book didn’t sneak up and grow on me as I became immersed in the parallel season-long struggles, both personal and sports-related (in themselves, deeply intertwined), of these two wrestlers driven to become champion. I lived the wrestling season with these characters, vicariously experiencing all the incredible sacrifice, suffering, and focused self-centeredness that marks those dedicated to this level of competition. There is real intensity to the writing, so it is ultimately deeply disappointing to have to move this to the rejection category.
The reader, teased throughout with the promise of a fitting resolution, is left deflated and cheated by a simplistic and unsatisfying ending. A "best" book doesn't have to be perfect, but its strengths do have to be commanding enough to override the more obvious flaws--in this case, the hodgepodge of gratuitous background stories that just don't work. The combination, however, strikes a death knell for this title in a field of books with far more cohesion, artistry, and depth, despite the authenticity of the the teen voices expressed in the characters of these 2 competitors.
Genre Category: Sports Fiction
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