about the book
It is 1940, and Nazi Germany has invaded Norway. Even after the Norwegians lost and their country became occupied, they did not go quietly. They set up underground organizations devoted to spying on and sabotaging their enemy wherever they were, no matter if the Gestapo was around or not.
Fourteen-year-old Espen was a typical 1940s teenager before the war. Now that war has come to his home, Espen gets involved with the resistance movement, first delivering illegal newspapers, then becoming a courier passing along messages to agents in the underground, and finally becoming a spy himself as he grows up through the five years of occupation.
In that time Espen also makes new friends, loses them to the war, falls in love, and makes a tiny mistake. It seems tiny, anyway, but in the end it catches up with him. Espen is forced to flee the country and make for Sweden on skis, or else the Gestapo will capture him.
But can he make it over the mountains?
about the author
While working on another book, a friend gave Margi Preus a book about Manjiro Nakahama and told her she HAD to read it. Manjiro’s story was so compelling that Margi traveled to Japan twice and spent hours and hours researching whaling, Japanese culture in the 1800s, and Manjiro’s life.
Heart of a Samurai turned out to be much too complex to turn into a picture book, and Margi ended up writing her first novel for young readers. It won a Newbery Honor!
A graduate of Binghamton University, Margi served as artistic director of Colder by the Lake Comedy Theatre for 25 years. She still directs plays and collaborates on writing scripts at the theatre. She has written hundreds of comedy sketches and even a couple of comic operas. Margi also teaches courses at the College of St. Scholastica and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Margi lives in Duluth, Minnesota, with her family. She writes in a little blue-trimmed writing house nestled in the trees. In her spare time, Margi enjoys hiking, skiing, paddling, and sitting quietly with a book.
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Allison’s Book Bag
Author biography: Wikipedia
Also by Margi Preus:
The Bamboo Sword. Amulet Books. September 2015.
West of the Moon. Amulet Books. 2014.
Heart of a Samurai. Amulet Books. 2010.
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