A gorgeous based on a true story YA novel, told with utter love and hope. A tough subject (WWII, the Holocaust, Jewish refugees), heavily inspired by real people in a real French village. So lovely and worth the read, and helps remind us that this situation could happen to any of us at any point.

It's December 1942, and Inspector Perdant has just arrived in the small mountain village of Les Lauzes, located in southeastern Vichy France, and not far Switzerland's border. Officially, Perdant's job is to "maintain positive relationships with the locals," but unofficially, he understands his job is "to identify evidence of illegal activities and unregistered Jews, foreigners, communists, and undesirables." (pg 38)

No sooner does Perdant settle in than he takes an immediate dislike of the teenagers who sled at high speeds through the village's main street at night. And as Perdant begins to observe the comings and goings of village residents, he becomes increasingly suspicious of these teens, convinced that they are up to something and there are Jews sheltering among them and that the villagers are in on it.

And indeed, Perdant's suspicions are correct. In the center of Les Lauzes is a high school that is "meant to 'promote peace and international unity' and attracts teens from all over France, many of whom live in different boardinghouses in the village. Les Lauzes is a village full of secrets, and these teens attending school are part of that. Living in a boardinghouse named Sunnyside is an expert Jewish forger of documents, ration books, and identity cards who turned himself into Jean-Paul Filon, 17, and whose base of operations is the barn of Monsieur Mousset, a farmer. Jean-Paul often works with siblings Sylvie and Léon. Into Jean-Paul's life comes Jules, a 10-year-old goatherd who knows the mountains around Les Lauzes better than anyone and who offers his services as a delivery boy of forgeries.

Then there is red-headed Philippe, a Boy Scout with survival training, who escorts people escaping the Nazis through the mountains and across the Swiss border. Not well known among the teens, Philippe sleeps by day, and travels by night. Celeste, a wealthy girl from Paris, thinks she is too scared to be of any help to the resistance until she is asked to take a risky trip to deliver a message for the maquis.

In mid-December, the Gestapo arrive in Les Lauzes, taking up residence in a hotel right next to the Beehive, as boardinghouse with twenty children living there, most of them Jewish, including teenage Henni, as is the director of that residence. Most of the children there, including Henni, were released from Gurs, a concentration camp in southwestern France.

This is a character driven story and is told from alternating points of view, including Pendant. The characters are all based on actual people, with the exception of Jules. One of the things I liked is the inclusion of a mystery woman with a limp who carries a suitcase around with her and sometimes herds the goats. The implication is that she is Virginia Hall, an American spy. I also feel that the village of Les Lauzes is itself a character in its own right, and is based on the real village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

And into this mix of characters, Margi Preus weaves a fictionalized story of resistance, courage, cleverness, community, and danger, all of it based on real people and true events in the face of Nazi occupation. What makes the resistance activity work is that nearly everyone in the community is involved, including ordinary citizens, pastors, farmers, teachers, families, and of course, the teens, just as it was in reality.

Preus has included a Pronunciation Guide of names and places used, and back matter includes an extensive Bibliography. But most interesting of all is her Epilogue. Here she documents the actual people that her characters are based on and what happened to them after the war, as well as information about the actual places included in the book.

There are illustrations done by the author, but I read an EARC and never saw the final art so I don't feel I can comment of them. That aside, Village of Scoundrels is an exciting, well-written work of historical fiction about a different aspect of the French Resistance.

This book is recommended for readers age 11+
This book was an EARC gratefully received from NetGalley

This is such a memorable title and when I realized it was written by Margi Preus, I requested an advanced reader copy. It will be released in a few weeks on February 25th and I have my order in for this title. Even though there are a plethora of World War II books right now and I almost feel saturated, I needed to read this one since I really love how this author can surprise me. This is the time to be writing these stories since many of the persons from this era are now quite elderly and it is our last chance to get their first-person accounts. Preus includes lots of photos and additional information about the characters at the end of the book along with pronunciations of the French names and places.

The story is about a French town that was united in taking in Jewish refugees and helping them escape or hide in plain sight. This book focuses on teenagers who smuggled, forged documents, delivered messages to the resistance, and escorted Jews to safety. The town was a neutral zone at the beginning of the war but eventually, the German soldiers begin to arrive with names seeking out the illegals and their safety is no longer firm. What remains firm is the conviction that what was happening to the Jews was wrong and that they would break laws and risk lives to give them protection.

Despite the heavy sounding description of the plot, Preus tells this story with levity, love, and youthful hopefulness. I think messages of doing what is right when it is difficult, not sanctioned, or even illegal are important reminders for all of us.

I give this book a 4 star out of 4 star rating. I really liked it.

I remember clearly the day when I realized that all the horrors of the Second World War happened during my grandparents' childhoods. I was ten or so, already found novels and movies about WWII exciting and romantic--and then it hit me: this did not happen a long time ago. This could happen again. It seems obvious to me now--yet when I told my children that their great-grandmother lived through this, that their not-as-distant-as-you'd-like cousins suffered in concentration camps in Poland, I saw the same shock and horror that I'd felt dawning on their faces. I could read their thoughts: we can't let this happen again.

Without sounding fatalistic. I don't think most people realize--or bother thinking about--how easily we could slip into such a situation. It's not worth asking what you would do if you had to live through another World War II--because the fact is, if you're not somehow speaking up against injustice or fighting it in your everyday life and actions, you're already letting it happen again. There are so many vulnerable members of our world--immigrants, homeless, the unborn, the elderly, the abused, the hungry, the handicapped, those disabled or differently-abled...just to start. If we don't value their lives, how are we any different than those who turned blind eyes to the atrocities faced by their Jewish or handicapped or "different" neighbors less than a century ago?

I'm glad that my naive love for books set during World War II made me ask these questions before my childhood was through. I'm glad to be able to share the same books with my children--and I'm very glad, today, to introduce you to a new book that tells a story inspired by a real town, by real young people, who stood against injustice and succeeded in keeping it at bay.

Margi Preus's Village of Scoundrels is the story of a real French village and real French people (though fictionalized for her novel, they are heavily inspired by actual people) who managed to successfully hide and relocate approximately 3500 Jews during the years of the German occupation of France. I was amazed, upon reading the author's note, to find that all the best bits of the story--those scenes and moments which the author crafted so compellingly--were true. Some of the dialogue was taken from life. The people and places that would seem most incredible--something only a really good author could invent--were real. Yet not once did the story read like a dull documentary. Margi Preus's characters breathed and lived and fought; you could feel the bite of the snow on the French plateau, feel the rush of wind as you raced on your sled down the Main Street of the village.

Village of Scoundrels has several main characters, all of them young people, most of them members of the French Resistance. There is an escaped Jewish teenager who forges false documents, a French Boy Scout who smuggles Jews into Switzerland, teenage girls who act as spies. (Again, all based on real people.) The adults in their life teach them well (flying in the face of the unjust laws). They also trust them with the truth, hard as it is, and let them fight for it.

Because their story came so startlingly and believably to life under the author's hand, there was a special weight to the advice the characters give us, sometimes subtly and sometimes forcefully, in the book's pages.

Take this paragraph, one of my very favorites, spoken through a young shepherd boy who is supporting the resistance as a messenger, courier, and all-around scoundrel of the best of sorts:

"I didn't say like or not like.... I said right or wrong. Everybody knows what is wrong, but some people are too afraid to say or do anything. And some people manage to do a lot of twisty turns in their minds because they wish it to be right. But you can't make it right by wanting it to be right."

Amen.

Let's not let our minds go twisty turny. Let's be like the villagers of Les Lauzes and continue to live for what is good and true and beautiful. Thank you, Margi Preus, for the reminder that it is necessary and possible.

Thanks also to Netgalley for sending me an electronic advance reader copy of this book. It will be released on February 25, so mark your calendars!

Thank you to Amulet Books for sending me an ebook review copy through NetGalley of Village of Scoundrels written by Margi Preus.

This was a really intense book, telling the story of young hero’s during WW2. These youths did such dangerous but incredible things helping to protect, hide and create fake papers for Jews wanting to find safety.

I really enjoyed reading this story I love history and this area of history in particular is fascinating to me, I love the way the author researched the real people and then created them as her own to create this story, as you’re reading the things they do scare you and then you realise this actually happened. It’s great but also sad they had to.

It’s a perfect read for anyone wanting to expand their historical knowledge it should also be used as a good WW2 book to add to any curricula as children would be fascinated, horrified and entranced in the story.

My only qualms with this book were the major editing mistakes which were distracting and at times made it hard to know what word to fill in, you’d get a few letters and then gaps, or the authors name added mid sentence. Very strange for it not to have been edited but that’s okay as the story was still amazing.

During World War II, there were many individuals from multiple countries who stood up against Nazi persecution. It still wasn’t the norm, though, as resisting took unbelievable amounts of courage and a desire/ability to see beyond the message that many government officials were delivering to the public. Therefore, the fact that so many of the residents of the Haute-Loire plateau in south-central France participated in small and large efforts to resist the Nazis is remarkable. Village of Scoundrels by Margi Preus (ARC provided by NetGalley and Amulet Books) is a work of historical fiction that describes the efforts of several children and young adults who chose to aid refugees despite the risk to their own lives. The book might be a work of fiction, but many of the acts of the young people profiled are facts.

Village of Scoundrels alternates between the experiences of several characters. We meet Phillipe, who takes Jewish refugees to safe houses and eventually across the border to Switzerland. Jean-Paul, who is Jewish himself, creates false paperwork for people being targeted by the Nazis and the Vichy government. Jules is ten years old, but plays an enormous role in the story as a courier of forged documents and the provider of false information to Officer Perdant who knows that something illegal is happening in the community he patrols (parts of Jules’ story are fictional, but we do know that there was a young goatherd between the ages of 10 and 13 who did carry forged documents to aid the resistance). These are only a few of the incredible characters in this truly remarkable story.

This book contains suspense, romance, and well-rounded characters, but it also demonstrates a level of historical detail that is not always present in young adult literature. The notes at the end of the book contain stories about the real people represented by the characters in Village of Scoundrels as well as information about what happened to them after the war. Preus also lists a variety of sources to which readers can turn to learn more about Haute-Loire. This region is still offering shelter to refugees from all over the world.

Few works of historical fiction do so much to bring to life the places and people they are depicting. Village of Scoundrels will continue to be an important resource to remind us that even in the darkest periods of history hope and love could be found in surprising places.

This book was really interesting and I particularly liked the information about the people the book was based on, at the end. I did find this book quite hard to follow at times and there was something not quite right with the formatting, which meant that random letters would be missing throughout the book but the majority of the time this was easy to work out.

A fascinating compilation of stories featuring those affected by WWII in France. A good title for students who are interested in history and narrative nonfiction (although this title isn’t nonfiction). Equally interesting were the profiles of the real people who inspired the stories at the end of the book. Recommended.