Shortlisted for the Peters Book of the Year. A shocking story of rebellion and revelation set in a contemporary Nazi England. Jessika Keller is a good girl: she obeys her father, does her best to impress Herr Fisher at the Bund Deutscher Mädel meetings and is set to be a world champion ice skater.
Nazi England, 2014
Jessica Keller is a good girl. A champion ice skater, model student of the Bun Deutscher Madel and dutiful daughter of the Greater German Reich.
Her best friend Clemetine is not so submissive. Passionately different, Clem is outspoken, dangerous, radical. And the regime has noticed.
Jess cannot keep both her perfect life and her dearest friend, her first love. But which can she live without?
Beyond its alternate history premise, the book deftly examines the ways in which gender roles and sexuality play out under a society that strictly delineates them. There are surprises for both Jess and the reader in the ending, making this a timely piece for teens to consider what pacifism and/or protest looks like and the costs each entail
