The Enemy’s Daughter by Anne Blankman

The Enemy’s Daughter traces a friendship born in adversity during World War I.

The Enemy’s Daughter by Anne Blankman. Viking, 2025, 272 pages

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-14

Marta Pfaffenbach and her father are steaming to disaster. Papa understood that booking passage from New York to Europe in the midst of a war was risky, but a family crisis is calling them back to Germany. He and Marta are traveling under false papers lest their presence on a British ship arouse suspicion. Caution falls by the wayside, though, when the Lusitania is struck by a German torpedo and quickly sinks. Thrown into the icy water, Marta is separated from her father and would have drowned if helping hands had not pulled her aboard an inflatable raft. From there a series of passages shuffle her and other survivors to the city of York, in northeast England. Her joy at learning her father survived is overcome by dismay when he’s accused as a spy and taken away to be locked up.

Left on her own, Marta takes refuge in a cellar, where she’s discovered by a lively Irish girl named Claire. Upon learning that Marta is a refugee from the Lusitania, Claire insists on welcoming her into the family circle, though the circle is missing a father and they don’t have much to spare. Marta feels she has no choice but to accept and pretend to be something she’s not. But of course she can’t be friends. Claire is the enemy–even though, as the weeks pass and the girls find more and more in common, it’s harder to keep that thought in mind. Aren’t we supposed to hate our enemies? Her father’s words come to mind:

No good can come of pitting people against one another. We would do well to remember that there is no such thing as enemies, not when we are all humans who want the same things—freedom and love.

Maybe not all of us, and what’s true for individuals is not necessarily true for nations. Still, the growth of the girls’ friendship is genuinely touching, as are the acts of simple kindness Marta experiences along her way. The church (Lutheran and Catholic) is presented favorably, although there are several possible misuses of God’s name, uttered or thought while in distress.

Bottom Line: An affecting story of friendship under extreme circumstances.

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Review: Blackbird Girls, by the same author, is another story of a friendship forged in difficult circumstances, this one during the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown.
• Reviews: Fascinating nonfiction about World War I: The Grand Escape, and Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood.

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