Deborah Hopkinson

Award Winning Author of Fiction & Nonfiction for Children & Teens

D‑Day

The World War II Invasion That Changed History

D-Day

What is this book about?

The WWII inva­sion known as D‑Day was the largest mil­i­tary endeav­or in his­to­ry. By June 6, 1944, Hitler and his allies had a strong grip on the Euro­pean con­ti­nent, where Nazi Ger­many was engaged in the mass exter­mi­na­tion of the Jew­ish peo­ple. The goal of D‑Day was the total defeat of Hitler’s regime, and the defense of free democ­ra­cies every­where. Know­ing they had to breach the French coast, the US, Great Britain, and Cana­da planned for the impossible.D‑Day was an inva­sion not for con­quest, but lib­er­a­tion, and required years to plan and total secre­cy to keep the advan­tage of sur­prise. Once deployed, Oper­a­tion Over­lord involved sol­diers, sailors, para­troop­ers, and spe­cial­ists. These are the con­tri­bu­tions of not only D‑Day’s famous play­ers, but African Amer­i­cans, women, jour­nal­ists, and ser­vice mem­bers in a mas­ter­ful tapes­try of offi­cial doc­u­ments, per­son­al nar­ra­tives, and archival pho­tos to bring this deci­sive bat­tle to vivid, thrilling life.

Reviews

“Hop­kin­son has com­piled a com­pre­hen­sive and absorb­ing overview … this insight­ful title, chock-full of pri­ma­ry sources, is a strong pur­chase.” (School Library Jour­nal, starred review)

“Hop­kin­son is par­tic­u­lar­ly adept at direct­ing atten­tion to the sto­ries behind the hero­ic sto­ries.” (Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Chil­dren’s Books)

“How does an author sequen­tial­ly chron­i­cle mul­ti­ple, rapid­ly devel­op­ing, and simul­ta­ne­ous events and main­tain not just coher­ence, but sus­pense? Hop­kin­son employs her sig­na­ture kalei­do­scop­ic style effec­tive­ly here: syn­the­siz­ing com­plex events into a com­pelling nar­ra­tive arc, and sam­pling myr­i­ad voic­es to add tex­ture and col­or to the sto­ry, while nev­er los­ing sight of the big­ger pic­ture.” (The Horn Book)

“Such major fig­ures as Dwight D. Eisen­how­er and Omar Bradley get plen­ty of atten­tion, but more is giv­en to the expe­ri­ences of the sol­diers who wad­ed ashore under fire or para­chut­ed behind ene­my lines. Hop­kin­son weaves their per­son­al accounts with those of obser­va­tions by Ernie Pyle and oth­ers to bring the inva­sion vivid­ly to life … An attrac­tive­ly pack­aged, engross­ing his­to­ry that will appeal to read­ers fas­ci­nat­ed with mil­i­tary strat­e­gy.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“With thor­ough­ness and clar­i­ty, this title brings D‑Day into focus by break­ing it down into com­po­nents and focus­ing on human voic­es and per­spec­tives … pro­vides a wealth of infor­ma­tion clear­ly pre­sent­ed along­side many black and white pho­tos, result­ing in an engag­ing read even for those who may not be inter­est­ed in a book about mil­i­tary his­to­ry. The com­plex­i­ty of the his­tor­i­cal task under­tak­en, the chal­lenges of the ter­rain, and the courage required of those involved is con­veyed by the author with­out hyper­bole and by allow­ing the par­tic­i­pants to tell their own sto­ries. High­ly Rec­om­mend­ed.” (School Library Con­nec­tion)

D-Day

author, Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son
Scholas­tic Non­fic­tion
ages 8 and up, 2018
ISBN 978–0545682480

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