Shadow Creatures

By Author / Illustrator

Chris Vick

Genre

Historical Fiction

Age range(s)

11+

Publisher

Zephyr

ISBN

9781837933167

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

03-10-2024

Synopsis

Tove was 12 and Liva nine when the Germans occupied Norway. They remember everything as if it happened yesterday. A middle grade story of bravery, resilience, rivalries and shadow creatures in the night.

Mose and her daughter Agna are incomers in the village, treated with suspicion. But young Liva, left out of the secrets her sister Tove and brother Hakken share, idolises Agna and follows her everywhere. Unwittingly, they lead the German soldiers to a perfect island. Once a haven for picnics and story-telling under the midnight sun, it is transformed into a grim POW camp.

This is an unlikely place to find buried treasure, but it's there. Friendships are made and broken, family trust is turned upside down and lives change forever as Tove and Liva recall their childhood experiences of living through WW2, in a story that moves from light to darkness to light again.

Author Chris Vick tells ReadingZone what inspired his WWII adventure about Occupation.

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Reviews

Jacqueline

Georgy listens to her grandmother Tove and great aunt Liva recount what happened to them during the war in Norway. They were only children when the Germans invaded and they witnessed brutal occupation, seeing enormous suffering.

Based on the true story of Chris Vick's family, this is an exciting but sobering read. Touching upon Norwegian folklore of the shadowy creatures that inhabit the forests, Shadow Creatures looks at how ordinary Norwegians struggled through the war and somehow survived.

I knew nothing about this experience and it was quite harrowing in parts. Chris Vick's writing completely captures the place and emotions of the time. Anyone studying World War II will find this a different addition to the growing body of excellent children's fiction about this time.

336 pages / Reviewed by Jacqueline Harris, teacher