‘THE BOY WHO DARED’ is a story which you can never forget. The emotions of the characters are not just read but felt. I have, in fact decided that Susan Campbell Bartoletti is the best story-teller ever. Her writing is like a time travelling machine. The places and events are detailed so well that you can see them in front of you.
It is an incredible story of a boy who is no less then Harry Potter or Superman. I think that everyone should read this book, as everyone deserves to know this amazing story of injustice, cruelty, truth and bravery.
Helmuth was seventeen when he was executed. Why? Because he dared to speak the truth even though he knew what it would lead to.
It was when Adolf Hitler rose to power when life changed. Jews were treated unfairly. Germans were not allowed to go to shops run by Jews or hear foreign radio stations. They were shut out of the world surrounding them. Many people were blindly following the rules as they believed it would save their fatherland. Others were obeying the rules but not agreeing with them, but were too scared to speak out. Everybody , except for one teenage boy, Helmuth.
In the RRG Helmuth heard how advancing Germans killed great numbers of Russians soldiers. Every night Helmuth used to silently go listen to BBC and learnt of all that Germany had lost that had not once been mentioned in RRG. Helmuth shared this information with his friends. They were frightened but supported him. Now they had a choice whether they wanted to tell everyone or keep it to themselves. Their choice to save Germany from the ruthless war-monger or get on with life. Their choice to live or die!
They chose death , bravery and truth. Helmuth was executed at the mere age of seventeen – with sheer luck his friends, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe and Rudi Wobbe survived.
The message in this book is that lying is easy but to speak the truth you have to believe deeply. Helmuth possessed this. A huge part of this book is also about the friendship shown in it between Karl, Rudi and Helmuth.
Many people would think that what Helmuth did ,did not make a difference. So what was the point?
The point was that he did give away the truth and that affected many people. Every single action counts and so did his. He had influenced others to speak out loud for the good of their Fatherland !
- Srishti Mukherjee (11 years)
Please Note: This is a review sent in as an entry to the Chillibreeze Writing Bee Contest for kids. The review has not been edited. The views in this review are the reviewer’s own and not endorsed by Chillibreeze.
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