At Last She Stood: How Joey Guerrero Spied, Survived, and Fought for Freedom
By: Erin Entrada Kelly, Ferdelle Capistrano (Narrator)
Genre: Middle Grade, Nonfiction
Number of Pages: 208
Published: May 6, 2025
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Dates Read: August 8, 2025
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

In this novel, you learn about Josefina “Joey” Guerrero, a guerrilla fighter, a spy, a Medal of Freedom recipient, Hansen’s disease survivor, teacher, and peacemaker. Told with historical photos as well as key themes and moments in history, readers will learn about a piece of WWII that many probably haven’t heard about.

Learning (yet again) something new in 2025 about WWII. I wasn’t too familiar with the Philippines in WWII, so I absolutely hadn’t heard of Joey Guerrero, but I adore Erin Entrada Kelly’s writing and once I saw she was writing a nonfiction about someone, I knew it was important that I knew who Joey was.

What a remarkable woman Joey was. She never let anything stop her, or slow her down. Her life wasn’t picture perfect, but she’d accept it and keep going. She was resourceful too – knowing she wouldn’t get checked as much because of her disease. It was kind of crappy how the US treated her after everything she did (but in all honesty, it doesn’t surprise me…)

Overall, though this book is aimed at middle grade readers, I still think older readers would enjoy it. As a woman in her 30’s, I found the breakdown of information a lot more digestible than older history books.

*Thank you Greenwillow Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review