Hitler Youth
by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Scholastic, Inc., 2005
hardcover: 978-0439353793
paperback: 978-1338309843
176 pages, ages 12 and up
a companion book to:
Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
About the Book
“I begin with the young. We older ones are used up … But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world.” —Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg 1933
By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. In this book, I explore how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany’s young people. My research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members.
Awards and Recognition
- ALA Best Book for Young Adults Top Ten
- ALA Notable Children’s Book
- Booklist Editor’s Choice
- Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book
- Horn Book Fanfare
- IRA Notable Book for a Global Society
- Junior Library Guild selection
- Kirkus Editors’ Choice
- NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book
- Newbery Honor Book
- Orbis Pictus Honor
- Parent’s Gold Choice Award
- Pennsylvania Carolyn Field Award
- Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year
- School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
- Sibert Honor Book
- Sydney Taylor Notable
- VOYA Nonfiction Honor
- YALSA Best Books for Young Adults
Reviews
Bartoletti offers a unique and riveting perspective on WWII by focusing on the young people who followed Hitler from 1933-1945.(Publishers Weekly, starred review)
Nonfiction writing at its best. Essential for WWII collections as well as teaching units on conformity, peer pressure and resistance. (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
Bartoletti lets many of the subjects’ words, emotions, and deeds speak for themselves, bringing them together clearly to tell this story unlike anyone else has. (School Library Journal, starred review)
This solid offering deserves wide readership by today’s young people, and it is certain to promote extensive discussion. (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review)
Bartoletti draws on oral histories, diaries, letters, and her own extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors, Hitler Youth, resisters, and bystanders to tell the history from the viewpoints of people who were there. (Booklist, starred review)
The power of the account is matched by the many period candid and propaganda photographs, well-married to the text by strong captions and placement and an unobtrusive but period-evocative Art Deco page design. (The Horn Book, starred review)
