about the book
The Nazis hate baseball…and I hate the Nazis. I play semi-pro ball on the Eastern Shore Baseball league. Today, the last day of the season, there are six teams on the league. Tomorrow there won’t be any. Too many men are signing up to fight. My name is Roman Bucyk. The year is 1941 and war is imminent. I love baseball, but I’m leaving to enlist in the Army, too, because I love my country more. Got to stand up for the freedoms our country believes in. “Fight for Right.” That’s how I look at this war.
Basic training takes forever. Turns out they want to make me a tank driver of all things…and what’s more amazing, I am dang good at it! I’m itching to wheel this big baby all over the Krauts.
But I don’t end up going to Germany. Not even Europe. They send me to North Africa—first to Algeria and then on to Tunisia. This place is nothing like I have ever seen before. We are going after Hitler’s Afrika Korps, and they are rumored to be fearsome fighters.
Me and my team spend a lot of frustrating time sitting around waiting for orders, but finally things start to heat up. We are sent deeper and deeper into the disputed territories, Djebel Hamra and Sidi Bousid, and when the battles begin, they are lightning swift and terrible.
I fight hard, harder than I ever fought during any time in my life. I give it my all, same as my team does. We are bound together in a common cause and our lives depend on each other. I have their back and they have mine. But what I see, what I have to do…well, I’m not prepared. Not for the noise, not for the chaos…and definitely not for the wounded and the dead.
As the fighting get worse and worse, I cling to the thought of my fiancée, Hannah, back home. I write to her, but I can’t really tell her how brutal these battles are. This war is a whole new ball game.
about the author
Chris Lynch was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He dreamed of being a hockey player, the U.S. president, or a rock and roll idol. His father died when Chris was only five.
Chris headed to Boston University and Suffolk University to study journalism. He worked as a mover/truck driver, proofreader, and house painter, before turning to writing for young adult readers. He moved to Ireland (where his father was born), divorced, remarried, and spent as much time as he could in writing and being with his two children.
Now Chris spends his time in Ayr and Edinburgh in Scotland. His children are heading off to college, and he’ll soon be moving into a new house where he’ll get his own tiny study, a good place to write. He teaches creative writing programs at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, so comes back to America quite often. He also mentors aspiring writers.
In the Vietnam series, Chris explores how war changes four friends. In the first book, I Pledge Allegiance, Morris joins the Navy intending to protect his three buddies. In Sharpshooter, Ivan joins the Army, thinking war is the illustrious stuff his WWII vet father told stories about. Now he kills people. In Free-Fire Zone, Rudi joins the Marines and thinks all he’ll have to do is follow orders. In Casualties of War, Beck joins the Air Force, thinking nothing could be safer than working as a mechanic…but the casualties of war are everywhere.
Sources:
Author biography/interview : Epic Reads
Author interview : teenreads
Author profile : Harper Collins
Meet the author video
Also by Chris Lynch:
The Liberators (World War II, Book 4). Scholastic 2015.
Alive and Kicking (World War II, Book 3). Scholastic 2014.
Walking Wounded (Vietnam, Book 5). Scholastic. 2014.
Dead in the Water (World War II, Book 2). Scholastic 2014.
Casualties of War (Vietnam, Book 4). Scholastic. 2013.
Free-Fire Zone (Vietnam, Book 3). Scholastic. 2012.
Sharpshooter (Vietnam, Book 2). Scholastic. 2012.
I Pledge Allegiance (Vietnam, Book 1). Scholastic. 2011.
Prime Evil (Cyberia, Book 3). Scholastic. 2010.
Monkey See, Monkey Don’t (Cyberia, Book 2). Scholastic. 2009.
Cyberia (Cyberia, Book 1). Scholastic. 2008.
The Gravedigger’s Cottage. Harper Collins. 2004.
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Dead in the Water (World War II, Book 2) by Chris Lynch
Hank, a young Navy man, is stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, on the opposite side of the globe from his brother Theo. As Hank struggles to adjust to life at sea and cope with military threats, he learns that his choice of friends, in an era of prejudice and segregation, can be putting him in danger as well.
Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes
It is 1944 and the Nazis occupy Florence, Italy. The Italian Resistance is still alive and well. Young Paolo and his sister Constanza find themselves helping to oppose the German forces, using only the one bicycle they share between themselves. But what can one bicycle do against the German army?
Shadow on the Mountain by Margi Preus
Espen lives in Norway at the beginning of World War II. As the atrocities of the Nazi Gestapo grow, Espen and his friends become involved in the Norwegian Resistance, making courier runs and even doing spy work. When Espen is caught spying by the Gestapo, he is in the race for his life to get to safety in Sweden. Can he get there in time?