both by Adam Gidwitz (Author), Euan Morton (Narrator), Listening Library (Publisher)

Audiobooks

 In Adam Gidwitz‘s MAX AND THE HOUSE OF SPIES, Max Bretzfeld is a Jewish boy living in Germany with his parents during the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich. It is very dangerous for Jews, and as a last resort while the atrocities escalate higher, they send their son with other children to England to save his life. Max does NOT want to go. He wants to stay with his parents, but he soon finds himself taken from the boat and living with a wealthy Jewish family in London.

He’s tough and he’s kind. And he doesn’t like bullies.  He does some very innovative, astounding things to “teach bullies a lesson” at his new school. (You will love it and laugh.)

Max is also very good with shortwave radios. He built one for his father in Berlin so he could secretly listen to orchestras across Europe.  Max is given one to “play with” by his new family and he fine-tunes it to do amazing things. Spy craft things. Max wants desperately to return to Berlin and find/help his parents.

Oh, one thing more.  Max has two invisible (magical?) fellow travelers from Berlin who sit on his shoulders. They are a kobold and a dybbuk named Berg and Stein, and they stick like glue.  These 4-inch guys can talk to Max and he to them, although no one else can hear.  They want desperately to return to Berlin too.  One is jolly, the other grumpy, so they argue with each other and sometimes advise Max. 

With the oversight of a very smart “uncle” with connections, Max is trained as a child spy to return to Berlin (Operation KInderspion), to use his amazing knowledge and talent with radios to infiltrate Germany’s single radio station.  The serious, but also laugh-out-loud funny Spy Training School stint is wonderful.  Of course, Max’s main (personal) mission is to find his parents, so he tries desperately to pass the test. 

What do Berg and Stein think of being dropped via parachute behind enemy lines? 

This all is a wonderfully fun and serious adventure, and I LOVED reading the book. It is very well written, knowledgeable, clever, and suspenseful.  But did they actually DO those things as part of the espionage effort in the UK in World War II? 

You get a PDF file with photos and notes with the book, so……  

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In Part Two of Adam Gidwitz‘s duology, MAX AND THE LAND OF SPIES, we find Max Bretzfeld strapped to an English soldier via a parachute harness. They are lying in a field in rural Germany, and Max discovers the soldier is dead. The seriousness of THIS part of the story hits the reader on page one. What will Max do alone? What of the mission? Slowly he walks from the field and finds his way to another “uncle’s” house.

After that, we watch him – through harrowing events – slowly and ingeniously follow his mission instructions until the finale which he so amazingly tweaks.

The little invisible German-Jewish beings on his shoulders (Berg and Stein) fulfill the children’s book aspect cleverly and with some fun, but this book is definitely more of an adult (or older teen) book in content and theme.

The ideology of Hitler and his “friends” is quite horrific and disturbing at times. The propaganda they spout “could” be believable to a younger reader. If kids do read this book, there should definitely be a “discussion” with parents afterward. 

Altogether, this book and the series are well-researched and written. Hopeful, tear-jerking, terrifying, and gut-wrenching, but so hard to put down. A fine conclusion to the first book. But not for little kids.  Maybe teens and adults.