Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen

In Rescue, a 12-year-old girl joins the French Resistance to free her father from the Nazis.

Rescue by Jennifer A. Nielsen. Scholastic, 2021, 379 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-15

Life in occupied France isn’t bad—for some. For others, it’s a nightmare of midnight raids and friends and neighbors suddenly disappearing. For Marguerite (Meg) Kenyon and her mother and grandmother, it’s become a cat-and-mouse game of survival and quiet resistance. Meg’s English father is off fighting the Nazis, and a wounded British spy brings word that he has been captured. His rescue hangs on three strangers from Germany who are valuable to the war effort. They will need guidance for the next stage of their journey to Spain: someone familiar with the terrain who would not attract undue attention. Such a 12-year-old girl. Meg reluctantly volunteers for the mission, since it’s the most likely way of rescuing her father and since there’s no one else.

But there’s a subtext: the spy, Captain Stewart, is carrying a coded message from Meg’s father, specifically for her. Papa is certain she can figure out what it means. But what if she can’t? And what if her traveling companions are not to be trusted?

Though it stretches credulity at times, Rescue is a fast-moving adventure tale that takes readers from one perilous situation to the next and leaves them guessing about what might happen next. Jennifer Nielsen can be counted on to deliver a solid story with no objectionable elements or bad language, while highlighting admirable qualities like courage and resourcefulness. And happy endings: “Remember this always,” one of Meg’s traveling companions tells her: “There is nothing so dark that light cannot find its way back.”

Overall Rating: 3.75 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 4
• Artistic/literary value: 3.5

Also at Redeemed Reader:

Reviews: Jennifer Nielsen is the author of the popular Ascendance series, as well as A Night Divided (about the Berlin Wall), Resistance (the Warsaw uprising), and Words on Fire (Lithuanian independence).

Review: Real-life Resistance hero Virginia Hall is the subject of The Lady Is a Spy.

Review: Village of Scoundrels fictionalizes (but only slightly) the heroism of the people of Les Lauzes during the Nazi occupation of France.

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