Heroes by Alan Gratz

Frank and Stanley's fathers both serve in the Navy Air Corps at Pearl Harbor in 1941.  The boys, one white and one Japanese American, enjoy making up comic book characters and plots together.  One Sunday the boys go with Frank's sister's boyfriend to tour the USS Utah, when suddenly bombs start dropping all around them.  As the boys struggle to get to safety through all that happened during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and afterward, they both have hard lessons on what it really means to be a hero.

I saw this one on the shelf, and being someone who enjoys WWII historical fiction, decided to give it a try. It is a pretty historically accurate description of trauma and destruction of that event. Gratz doesn't sugar-coat anything.  The reader sees soldiers get shot, blown up, even body parts fall from the sky.  Even though Gratz doesn't spend a lot of time describing each scene of blood and gore it was enough that it gave me, a 59-year-old lady, bad dreams. Not only does Gratz describe the battle, he also deals with the instant prejudice Stanley's family suffers after the battle is over. I can imagine a certain set of young readers who would really like this book, and another set who would be really upset by it. This is way more hard-core than the "I Survived" novels.  I suggest a parent/teacher/librarian read the book before handing it to a child. (272 p. 2024)