Not only to I love the stories that are expected from history, but I love those unexpected gems that pop up every once in awhile (Code Name Verity and Between Shades of Gray, to name a few).
Soldier X has been in my book talk rotation for several years now, but I have never had the chance to read it--since it is usually off the shelf and I have yet to have a student come to me after reading this book and tell me they didn't like it. So, I decided that I needed to read it this summer....and it just so happens that I had a copy of this book in my "books removed from the library, but I still want to read" pile (it was in ratty condition and unable to be repaired anymore, so I had taken it out of the collection), so I grabbed it for part of my vacation reading.
The book opens with an old man, Professor Erik Brandt, explaining that his student had often asked him about his prosthesis and other injuries...to which he replied that he received the injuries while fighting in World War II in the woods in Russia....but he never tells his students that he was fighting for the Germans.
Erik is 16 and a member of Hitler Youth when he is sent to the Eastern front in 1944. Growing up in a bilingual household of German and Russian, the Germans plan to use his skills to help interrogate Russian prisoners. (Erik's deceased father was German and his mother and maternal grandparents, who helped raise him, are Russian.) During his first days of battle, most of his friends and platoon are decimated. He is stuck in a trench, behind enemy lines, with a dead Russian soldier about his age. In a split-second decision, Erik decides that his only chance at survival is to exchange clothing with the dead Russian and try to pass as a member of Russia's army. Because of injuries sustained during the battle, Erik is taken to a Russian hospital, where he is thought to be a Russian soldier with amnesia and is given the name X. At the hospital he falls in love with a young Russian nurse named Tamara.
Not only is X able to pass as a Russian soldier, he is able to make friends on this side of the war as well.
In some ways this book reminded me of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front due to its easy ability to wipe away the romance of war and to simply demonstrate the vast evil of it. This book would be a great way to introduce students to a different viewpoint of the war, as well as be a great discussion starter for loyalty and the justness of war.
I will definitely be keeping this one in my book talk rotation and use it to try to spark my reluctant readers!
Happy Reading!!
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