War Games
By Alan Gratz
- Release Date: 2025-09-16
- Genre: Historical Fiction for Kids
Description
A new Alan Gratz novel is always a major event! From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Refugee and Heroes comes this heart-pounding, high-stakes take on the 1936 Berlin Olympics, also known as the "Nazi Olympics."
All that glitters is not gold...
Evie can't believe she's made it to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After fleeing the Oklahoma Dust Bowl for golden California, Evie's family is still poor and reeling from devastating losses. She could have never guessed that the sport she took up to escape her reality would lead to this.
Now, she's competing in gymnastics on Team USA, with some of the greatest athletes in the world like track and field star Jesse Owens.
But all is not as it seems in Berlin, a city now ruled by the Nazis and their tyrannical leader, Adolf Hitler.
And Evie has secrets of her own. That shiny gold medal isn't the only gold she has her eye on. With two other Olympic athletes, who each have their own reasons for despising the Nazis, Evie has been recruited for the biggest heist of the century by a mysterious criminal mastermind, who intends on robbing the Nazis right under their noses. If everything works out, Evie can go home rich beyond belief; her mother can stop scrubbing laundry to make ends meet, and they'll finally be able to afford the medicine her sister needs so desperately.
Evie didn't count on being stuck with an inquisitive Youth Services Host, Heinz, who is determined to follow her every step while concealing his own deadly secret. And she didn't count on discovering the truth behind all of the glittering fanfare of the Olympics: the Nazis are harshly persecuting Jewish people and preparing for a devastating war.
When the time comes, Evie is forced to face the reality around her, and the horrors that the Nazis can't quite hide. She must learn how to see the truth beneath the mirage and choose between saving her family or fighting to save strangers in a foreign land under deadly threat.