Who Are You, Trudy Herman?
A Novel
by B.E. Beck
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Pub Date May 08 2018 | Archive Date May 01 2018
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Description
Advance Praise
"This novel offers a window into a lesser-known aspect of internment in WWII...When a regular girl confronts extraordinary challenges, this novel forcefully asks what it takes to stand up for what is right."
—Booklist
“Trudy Herman’s struggle to survive adolescence and deal with the difficulties of injustice, cruelty, and self-doubt is a remarkable record of self-evolution. Her story is both engaging and revealing and the writer’s ability to capture Trudy’s conflicts and growth is remarkable. We all learn from her experiences.”
―Gloria Campbell, author of Just for Thought
"Who Are You, Trudy Herman? is a strong commentary on social injustice viewed through the eyes of a young, innocent girl. Shocked and terrorized by its existence and the shame not to find courage to confront it, Trudy must reach deep within herself to do what is right. B. E. Beck’s writing style and her ability to develop her characters makes this a must read."
–Bruce Hansen author of ALPHA BLUE
"Confronting questions of inequality, injustice, and poverty, readers will ask themselves, 'Who would I be?' B.E. Beck explores America surrounding World War II, illuminating the story of a girl setting her moral compass. Trudy’s struggles leap off the page, relevant now more than ever."
–Jennifer Rainman, Librarian
"Told with deep empathy, this tale illuminates a little-known but relevant aspect of U.S. history and deftly explores privilege and injustice in their many forms.”
―Kirkus Reviews
"Through Trudy Herman, B.E. Beck illustrates the toils and triumphs of looking absurdity, indifference to suffering, and condescension straight in eye, and in doing such, builds solidarity across racial, national, and cultural differences. It's an insight into empathy, the relevance of which in many ways continues to define the United States today."
–Kristin Gissberg, Ph.D German Philosophy, Berlin, Germany
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781631523779 |
| PRICE | $16.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 294 |
Featured Reviews
Michelle K, Reviewer
Who Are You, Trudy Herman?
A Novel
by B.E. Beck
She Writes Press
Historical Fiction , Teens & YA
Pub Date 08 May 2018
I am reviewing a copy of Who Are You Trudy Herman through She Writes Press and Netgalley:
Trudy Herman was taught to stand up for the truth by her Grandfather when she was a little girl. But everything changes in 1943 when her family is sent to a German-American interment camp in Texas. As they travel to the camp Trudy meets Ruth, Ruth tells Trudy and her friend Eddie about the legend of the Paladins , they were knights of emperor Charlemarge who used magic gifted them by the Heavens to stand for virtue and Church. Ruth tells Trudy and Eddie they will become modern day Paladins and defend truth and Justice. Trudy is soon convinced by her negative experiences in the camp that she does not have what it takes to be a knight, a Paladin.
When she witnesses her friend Lise being raped she feels helpless to change anything, but the event changes Lise.
Trudy’s family spends two years in the camp going back home to release they are no longer welcome so her Father gets a job in Minnesota and they move there. When Trudy comes face to face with the ingrained bigotries of the local white community and the extreme poverty of the Black Citizen of Willow Bay. After their black housekeeper Trudy had come to care for finds herself in a crisis, and Trudy faces a choice of either looking the other way or being the person he wants her to be.
I give Who Are You Trudy Herman five out of five stars!
Happy Reading
Emi Y, Reviewer
Trudy Herman lives a very eventful life. When war breaks out and Trudy's father is harassed for his Germanic origins, her very normality crumbles. Their friends and community abandon the family, and Trudy and her parents are forced from their home. Eventually they're shipped out to a Texas concentration camp. After surviving the camps and the war, Trudy's family strives to blend back in again in a new location: the American South. Here Trudy finds herself witness to slavery-derived racial inequality. It killed me when she studied Japanese-American internment in school and got enraged by the exclusion of her own culture's treatment in the textbook. I really wish Trudy'd been given a chance to discuss that with a teacher or trusted grown-up.
I like the themes this book raises for kids about social justice, moral etiquette, and doing the right thing. But beyond that, what I really appreciate is the high regard with which Trudy approaches elderly characters - rooted in the close, warm relationship she shared with her maternal grandfather, and carried over with German Ruth who she befriended on the train journey to the camps. Trudy's superficiality and love of popularity is a bit of a thing for me, for example I didn't like her admiring somebody's lack of "a single freckle on her pixie face" or her "But they were popular, so I kept silent" as a justification, but for a teenage character I say Trudy sets a mighty fine example.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Amie Darnell Specht; Shannon Hitchcock
Children's Fiction, Children's Nonfiction, Middle Grade
