Soldier X

by Don L. Wulffson

Overview

Sixteen-year-old Erik Brandt barely knows what Germany is fighting for when he is drafted into Hitler's army in 1944. Sent to the killing fields of the Eastern Front, he is surrounded by unimaginable sights, more horrific than he ever thought possible. It's kill or be killed, and it seems clear that Erik's days are numbered. Until, covered in blood and seriously injured, he conceives of another way to survive. Filled with gritty and visceral detail, Soldier X will change the way every reader thinks about the reality of war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780142500736
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	07/14/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	239,290
Product dimensions:	4.19(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.62(d)
Lexile:	740L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Don L. Wulffson is the author of more than forty books, including Point Blank, The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle, Future Fright, and The Upside-Down Ship. He lives in Northridge, California.

Read an Excerpt

Iron smashed into my head.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Soldier X"
by .
Copyright © 2003 Don L. Wulffson.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Young Readers Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

"With well-researched and meticulously recorded details of life under fire, Wulffson urges readers to look past the outer trappings of the enemy to discover the human being inside the uniform."-Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Wulffson (Point Blank; The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle) poses haunting questions of allegiance, not only for his characters but for readers, with this behind-enemy-lines look at WWII. Veteran and teacher Erik Brandt's students deem him a hero, but he confides to readers that in WWII he fought for the Germans--not the Americans. He then flashes back to March 21, 1944, when at age 16, Erik, the son of a (deceased) German father and Russian mother, and a member of the Hitler Youth, boards a train bound for battle in Russia. Erik's idealism quickly fades as he witnesses firsthand the Third Reich's brutal treatment of Jews, the casualties of war (a nurse carrying a severed human leg) and the everyday compromises necessary to survive (the soldiers eat rats for sustenance). One of the most chilling quotes in the novel comes from a seasoned soldier when the teenaged reinforcements arrive at their post: "All the men are dead.... Now they are sending us boys." Wulffson effectively lays the groundwork for Erik's one chance for survival after a bloody German defeat in battle: Erik dresses in a dead enemy's clothes and, thanks to his fluency in Russian, passes as a Russian with amnesia, known as "X," in a Russian hospital. There he meets a beautiful nurse, Tamara, and although their love affair is not always convincing, the questions their relationship raises about loyalty (when she discovers Erik's true identity) are just as compelling as those found elsewhere in this riveting novel. With well-researched and meticulously recorded details of life under fire, Wulffson urges readers to look past the outer trappings of the enemy to discover the human being inside the uniform. Ages 10-14. (Mar.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A WWII veteran and teacher is deemed a hero by his students, but he confides in readers that he fought for the Germans, not the Americans. "This riveting novel urges readers to look past the outer trappings of the enemy to discover the human being inside the uniform," wrote PW in a starred review. Ages 12-up. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 8 Up-In this gritty novel of World War II, 16-year-old Erik Brandt is forced to fight for the emaciated German army, and because of his knowledge of the Russian language, he is sent to the Russian front. The train trip that Erik and the other young men take is symbolic of their transition from child to man. These boys are sent to the front with only a few weeks of basic training and the directions to kill or be killed. After the first battle, Erik makes the life-altering decision to take the uniform of a dead Russian soldier and pretends to be Russian for most of his remaining time as a soldier, surviving serious wounds and finding the love of his life while he recuperates in a war hospital. There he pretends to have amnesia and takes the moniker "Soldier X." When the hospital is attacked, Erik and his girlfriend escape. After a harrowing journey filled with enemy encounters, they find a safe house in Czechoslovakia and eventually make their way to Berlin. The story is framed with a prologue and epilogue from Erik's perspective as an old man, and is full of his angst over killing others and having survived the war. This novel, which is based on a true story, will find an audience among readers who are not put off by the horrors of war and who would like to read about World War II from a different perspective.-Cheri Estes, Detroit Country Day School Middle School, Beverly Hills, MI Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Almost 16 years old in 1944, Erik Brandt finds himself on a German troop train headed for the Eastern Front in Russia. Because his mother was born in Russia, he is bilingual and has volunteered to be an interpreter. What he and his fellow teenaged recruits find is that they are thrown into the front line of a battle near Tarnapol as part of an infantry division. Wounded in the trenches, Erik changes clothing with a dead Russian soldier and finds himself in a Russian field hospital feigning amnesia and constantly worrying about his Russian accent. In the weeks that follow, he gains assurance and friends and proves useful as an orderly. He is almost comfortable and less apprehensive until the moment that he spills hot oil on himself and cries out in German. The young Russian girl who hears him, Tamara, says nothing, and later becomes his companion as together, on foot, they flee a German offensive. Walking west through the Ukraine, facing danger and starvation, they use their increasingly effective survival skills and miraculously are taken in by a Czech woman who lives alone in her grand, war-damaged estate. Erik and Tamara grow to love each other and she stays faithful to him even as he is seriously wounded by American soldiers. Based on the lives of the author and his wife, this harrowing tale opens and concludes with the words of the adult Brandt. It is a compelling, graphic, and bloody depiction of war from the viewpoint of a raw recruit who is neither a Hitler fanatic nor a convert to communism. He simply and movingly records the daily horrors of living in a battlefield and his determination to survive and live freely. (Historical fiction. YA). . .

Kirkus Reviews