The Other Half of Life
Kim Ablon Whitney's YA novels received critical acclaim, including a Booklist Best Book of the Year. Here she retells the story of the doomed MS St. Louis, a ship of mainly Jewish refugees allowed to leave Germany in May of 1939, then denied entrance to Cuba and forced to return to Germany, where 1/3 of the passengers perished in camps. With themes such as survival, first love, self-discovery, and faith, along with narrative threads that feature chess, Goethe, and WWII-era immigration, this is an intelligent, tautly-told novel that will fit into a variety of curriculums, particularly in light of today's immigration.