Enemies in the Orchard
By: Dana VanderLugt
Genre: Middle Grade, Novel in Verse
Number of Pages: 288
Published: September 12, 2023
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Dates Read: September 14, 2023
Format: ARC / eBook

It’s October 1944 and Claire’s dad needs help with the orchard – especially since Danny’s off to fight in World War II. With no one responding to the help wanted ad in the paper, he hires a group of German POWs to help with the apple harvest. Claire wants absolutely nothing to do with the enemies, afterall, it’s men like them that are currently shooting at Danny’s overseas. But then she meets Karl, a soft-spoken, hardworking POW and her mind begins to change.

Meanwhile, Karl battles with the role he ended up playing within the lies of Hitler’s regime. After he begins working with Claire, it gives him hope that he can change and become a person he wants to be – not the one that’s been forced on him.

It still surprises me a bit when I read another novel set during WWII that showcases something I wasn’t aware had happened during that time. This one being that the United States had POW work camps on their own soil, and that the POWs would be “lent out” to local farmers.

Besides having a focus on WWII and the POWs in the United States, this also focuses a lot on Claire and her journey and fight for going against the norms for females during that time. Claire wants to continue school past an eighth grade education and her single room schoolhouse that she goes to and go on to become a nurse. Her father is very supportive of this plan, but not everyone else.

Though this book is aimed at Middle Grade readers, I can see everyone enjoying it. The writing provides readers with a compelling and easy to follow format that, even with the word count being low from it being a novel in verse, it still provides beautiful descriptions. I, myself, am going to be keeping an eye out for my own physical copy to purchase. 

*Thank you Zonderkidz and NetGalley for a digital advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review