Hero on a Bicycle

Gr 5–8—For 13-year-old Paolo Crivelli, the excitement of planning secret nightly trips into Florence balances the boredom and stress of living under Nazi occupation in a war-torn village outside the city. Because his mother, Rosemary, is English, she senses the town's suspicions of her. Paolo's father has joined the Partisans, a secret group working to sabotage the Nazis. For Rosemary, keeping her family safe is a daunting task, and she desperately misses her husband's strength and confidence. Then the Partisans ask her to hide two Allied soldiers who have escaped from the Germans. Though reluctant to jeopardize her family's safety, she feels she has no choice. As the excitement escalates, the characters struggle to be courageous while wrestling with life-threatening decisions. They have been living under harsh conditions and with the awareness that Nazi sympathizers are among their neighbors. Once the Allied soldiers are with the Crivellis, intrigue and mystery mount. Both Paolo and his sister, Constanza, do what is necessary, though there is underlying resentment by them and their mother that their father has chosen to follow his beliefs instead of staying to protect them. In this engrossing story, Hughes combines a riveting plotline with multidimensional characters. It also provides youngsters with some understanding of the choices and conditions faced by people in Europe during World War II. It's a good follow-up to Donna Jo Napoli's Stones in the Water (1997) and its sequel, Fire in the Hills (2006, both Dutton).—Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ