CANR
WORK TITLE: American Wings
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://elizabethwein.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME: CANR 301
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Surname is pronounced “ween”; born October 2, 1964, in New York, NY; daughter of Norman Wein and Carol Flocken; acquired British citizenship, 2016; married Tim Gatland (a computer engineer and management consultant); children: Sara, Mark.
EDUCATION:Yale University, B.A., 1986; University of Pennsylvania, M.A., 1989, Ph.D., 1994.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, and short-story writer. B. Dalton Booksellers, senior sales assistant, 1987-88; U.S. Postal Service, Washington, DC, conference manager, 1993-94; Harrisburg Area Community College, Harrisburg, PA, member of adjunct English faculty, 1994. Guest speaker at venues in Pennsylvania, New England, England, Scotland, and elsewhere.
AVOCATIONS:English church-bell ringing, travel, light aircraft (holds private pilot’s license).
MEMBER:International Board on Books for Young People (British section), International Organization of Women Pilots (Ninety-Nines), North American Guild of Change Ringers, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, American Folklore Society, Society for Commercial Archeology, Lincoln Highway Association, Scottish Association of Change Ringers, Scottish Aero Club, Oxford Society of Change Ringers, Society of Royal Cumberland Youths.
AWARDS:Jacob K. Javits Fellow, 1988-92; Edgar Award for best young-adult novel, and Michael L. Printz honor book, both 2013, both for Code Name Verity; NPR Best Books of 2013, BookPage Best Children’s Books of 2013, Schneider Family Book Awards best teen book, 2014, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book, 2014, and Top Ten YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2014, all for Rose under Fire; Odyssey Honor Audiobook, and Best Young Adult Novel prize, International Thriller Writers, both 2024, both for Stateless.
WRITINGS
Reviewer for the New York Times Book Review. Contributor to anthologies, including Writers of the Future,Volume IX, Bridge Publications (Los Angeles, CA), 1993; Not the Only One, edited by Tony Grima, Alyson Press (Boston, MA), 1995; The Horns of Elfland, edited by Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Donald G. Keller, Roc-Penguin (New York, NY), 1997; Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, HarperPrism (New York, NY), 1998; Rush Hour: Reckless, edited by Michael Cart, Delacorte Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2006; Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Viking (New York, NY), 2007; A Tyranny of Petticoats, edited by Jessica Spotswood, Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2016; and Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, Del Rey (New York, NY), 2017.
SIDELIGHTS
Elizabeth Wein is a novelist known for realistic historical fiction sometimes verging on fantasy and often enlivened by adventure. [open new]Her early childhood included periods of several years in both central England, near Alderley Edge, and Kingston, Jamaica. Her parents’ separation brought her back to the United States, to live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. When she was a young teenager, her mother died in a car accident, at which time her grandparents finished raising her. Her higher education culminated in a doctorate in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania, and she and her husband moved to England, then Scotland to settle and raise their children there.[suspend new]
Wein began her career with a cycle of novels for young adults that draw on Arthurian legends but approach the material differently than many other books in the genre. She omits the magical elements and some of the more fantastic characters, including Merlin and Sir Lancelot, uses the Welsh names for the personae, and focuses on the Celtic origins of the stories rather than their better-known, late-medieval versions. She has also written the “Mark of Solomon” series, which posits a half-British, half-Aksumite grandson of King Arthur in Africa; the award-winning Code Name Verity, set in World War II, and its companions; several stand-alone novels; and select nonfiction about aviators.
The Winter Prince and A Coalition of Lions
Wein’s first novel, The Winter Prince, is a psychological drama about the tensions and jealousies that exist between Medraut (the Welsh name for Mordred) and Lleu, and between Medraut and his mother Morgause. Wein writes the story as if Medraut is telling it to Morgause, and depicts Medraut as “a gifted, richly complex young man whose deep ambivalence about Lleu governs the story,” according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor. It is “a mesmerizing, splendidly imagined debut,” the reviewer concluded. The tale also was recommended by other critics, including School Library Journal reviewer Jane Gardner Connor, who commented that “the characterizations are complex and finely drawn” and Medraut’s “love-hate feelings for [Morgause] are powerfully conveyed.”
The second book in the series, A Coalition of Lions, was published a decade after The Winter Prince. Following in the tradition of reimagining the Arthurian legends in an original and nonmagical way, Wein sets part of this tale in the kingdom of Aksum (now Ethiopia). “Thanks to Wein’s thorough research about Africa in the sixth century,” Jean Boreen wrote in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, the book offers teenagers “a remarkable historical read.” After the deaths of Artos, Ginevra, and Lleu, Lleu’s twin, Goewin, flees to Aksum with the country’s British ambassador, Priamos. Like its predecessor, this story is full of jealousy and betrayal, “and Wein has a perfect handle on the ruthlessness of power,” Anita L. Burkam commented in Horn Book. “The story boasts plenty of action,” Burkam continued, “but it is the human scale and personality of the principal characters that gives the novel its heart.”
The Sunbird
The Sunbird tells the story of Telemakos, Medraut’s son by an African noblewoman. A remarkable listener and tracker, Telemakos is called upon by the emperor of Aksum to locate the leader of a group of salt smugglers, who are defying their nation’s quarantine against plague and are thereby allowing death and destruction into the kingdom. He ends up as a slave in a salt mine but is eventually rescued.
Then the young man sets about putting together what he has learned about the smugglers, “piecing together the clues for a satisfying conclusion,” wrote Burkam in Horn Book. Burkam also found that The Sunbird possesses “all of the richness and complexity of its predecessors,” and a Kirkus Reviews contributor called the book “a riveting tale” that is “intense, absorbing, and luminously written.”
The Lion Hunter
Following the publication of The Sunbird, Wein began a new series, called “Mark of Solomon,” with The Lion Hunter. Related somewhat to the books of the “Arthurian Sequence,” this novel follows Telemakos on an exciting journey that, in essence, begins with the birth of his sister Athena. Because of the birth of the child, Telemakos pays insufficient attention to his surroundings on that day and becomes the victim of a vicious attack. He survives but loses his arm, and he is forced to endure a long recovery, during which time he bonds with his new baby sister. As a result, Athena is sent along with him when Telemakos goes to the court of Abreha, where he is to serve as an apprentice in the realm of the king of Himyar. Once in Abreha, Telemakos is fortunate to find himself a mentor—one who helps him to deal with the mental scars he still suffers from being tortured during the events of The Sunbird. Despite this advantage, however, and the fact that his parents expected him to find safety in Abreha, the court itself proves to be a dangerous place, and a threat to Telemakos’s life.
Some reviewers found the book to be too complex, despite praising its rich descriptions and beautiful writing, noting that even those who are familiar with the previous books in the series might find the material challenging. Gillian Engberg in Booklist suggested that “readers … may struggle to connect the large cast and the complex political intrigues, revealed in oblique references.” Horn Book contributor Burkam observed that “readers’ sympathies toward the embattled, wounded hero will draw them on willingly while Wein weaves her web of loyalty and intrigue.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews called the book “a spellbinding story of great power.” In School Library Journal, Mara Alpert commented that “this is a challenging story complete with a cliff-hanger ending,” concluding that “readers who make the effort … will be richly rewarded.” Kliatt contributor Claire Rosser noted of the novel that “Wein has created a world we can hardly imagine … with details that bring it all to life.”
The Empty Kingdom
Wein concluded her “Mark of Solomon” set with The Empty Kingdom. In this installment, Telemakos is accused of treason to the court of Abreha by the najashi of Himyar. Stripped of access to anyone he loves and trusts, Telemakos finds himself not only separated from his sister, Athena, despite the fact that she has a wild temper and is uncontrollable when not in his presence, but also forbidden to contact his parents in his homeland. In addition, he is forced to wear a bracelet with bells on it so he cannot move silently. Telemakos is forced to use all of his skills and his craftiness to discover the truth behind the mysteries that surround him at court, and in order to break free of his bonds.
Claire Rosser, reviewing the book in Kliatt, observed that “Wein is a unique writer whose work elevates the field of literature for adolescents.” In School Library Journal, Beth L. Meister reported that “this is a worthy entry in Wein’s sophisticated look at ancient Ethiopia.” Horn Book contributor Claire E. Gross stated that “the inevitable pain of Telemakos and Abreha’s final break is offset by the joy of Telemakos and Athena’s reunion, a pitch-perfect resolution.” Further praise came from a Kirkus Reviews critic, who stated that “Wein’s evocation of the desert, … and of Telemakos’s fierce intelligence and cunning, make this extremely riveting.”
Code Name Verity
In 2012 Wein published the novel Code Name Verity, an intricately plotted novel that was named a Michael L. Printz honor book and won an Edgar Award for best young-adult novel. The main narrative string is devoted to “Verity,” a young British woman imprisoned for espionage in France during World War II. Under interrogation, Verity details British war plans against the Nazis, and what happened to the pilot of her plane after it crashed. A parallel plot describes efforts to rescue Verity.
Booklist contributor Daniel Kraus stated: “Both crushingly sad and hugely inspirational, this plausible, unsentimental novel will thoroughly move even the most cynical of readers.” Horn Book contributor Deirdre F. Baker praised the novel’s “outstanding” features, including “its warm, ebullient characterization; its engagement with historical facts; its ingenious plot and dramatic suspense; and its intelligent, vivid writing.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly said that “Wein balances the horrors of war against genuine heroics, delivering a well-researched and expertly crafted adventure.” In a joint review in Voice of Youth Advocates, Susan Allen and Anya Schulman mentioned that “the conclusion is unexpected and heartbreaking but altogether fitting with the premise,” adding that the portrayal of Nazi culture in the novel “will lead to thoughtful discussion.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor described the novel as “a carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.” Writing in School Library Journal, Necia Blundy opined that “this is an excellent book for thoughtful readers and book-discussion groups.”
Rose under Fire
Wein provides another airborne World War II adventure in Rose under Fire. This companion volume to Code Name Verity features a teenage American pilot and amateur poet named Rose Justice, who has joined the war effort on the British side, ferrying planes from England to Paris for the British Air Force. She is connected to the heroine of the previous book by a mutual friend, Maddie. In a flight over France, Rose is captured by the Nazis and sent to the infamous women’s concentration camp, Ravensbruck. Faced with the brutal circumstances of this camp—including its barbaric medical experiments conducted on the Polish prisoners dubbed “rabbits”—Rose struggles to survive, recording her experiences in diary format. Rose ultimately finds hope and the will to survive through the friendship and humanity of her fellow prisoners and mounts an escape plan. “The horrors of concentration camp life were not glossed over,” noted Sarah Laurence on her blog. “Rose is beaten, hungry and cold, but she brings hope to her fellow prisoners by exchanging poetry for bread. … Rose shares recollections of happier times: good food, bright nail polish and a charming boyfriend. Through Rose, history is humanized. We feel her pain and share her dreams.”
Rose under Fire won numerous awards and accolades from critics. Los Angeles Times Online reviewer Elizabeth Egan felt that it is “bound to soar into the promised land of young adult books read by actual adults—and deservedly so, because Wein’s unselfconsciously important story is timeless, ageless and triumphant.” In a similar vein, a Publishers Weekly contributor noted: “Wein excels at weaving research seamlessly into narrative and has crafted another indelible story about friendship borne out of unimaginable adversity.” Resource Links writer Alison Edwards was also impressed with the work, calling it a “beautifully presented novel.” Edwards added: “Students who enjoy an adventure novel as well as those who enjoy historical novels will like this book.” Horn Book reviewer Deirdre F. Baker likewise had a positive evaluation of Rose under Fire, commenting: “In plot and character this story is consistently involving, a great, page-turning read; just as impressive is how subtly Wein brings a respectful, critical intelligence to her subject.” A Kirkus Reviews critic noted: “At the core of this novel is the resilience of human nature and the power of friendship and hope.”
Black Dove, White Raven
Wein, who, along with her husband, is an amateur pilot, wrote another novel dealing with women flying in Black Dove, White Raven. The novel is set in the 1930s in the United States and Ethiopia. In an interview with a writer for the website Thirst for Fiction, Wein commented on her inspiration for setting this tale in Ethiopia: “Three of my earlier books are set in 6th century Ethiopia, so in doing research for these I acquired plenty of information about 20th century Ethiopia, and I knew about the Italian invasion. I was doing research about early female pilots and discovered Bessie Coleman, who in addition to being the first black woman to gain a pilot’s license was in fact the first American, man or woman and black or white, to gain an International Pilot’s License. One thing led to another with the research: I became interested in African American pilots, and discovered that two of these (both men) had gone to assist Ethiopia during the Italian invasion.” Thus, the seed for Black Dove, White Raven was firmly planted.
In this novel, Rhoda and Delia are best friends across the racial divide: Rhoda is a white Quaker and Delia is African American. The two women are stunt pilots, or barnstorming pilots as they were known in that time. They perform around the country at air shows and fairs billed as White Raven and Black Dove. Their children, Emilia and Teo, accompany them wherever the women go. When Delia is killed in an air crash, Rhoda takes in that woman’s son, Teo. But life is hard in the United States for a single white mother with a white and black child. Finally, she decides to fulfill Delia’s wish that her son could grow up in a land where his worth was not judged by his skin color. She moves with her two children to Ethiopia, where Teo’s father came from. There the three of them fall in love with the country and with their coffee plantation. Rhoda also teaches the youngsters to fly, and their life is idyllic until rumors start of a possible invasion by Italy, a precursor to World War II. When Italy finally attacks, the family is unable to leave Ethiopia. Worse, all young men who are of Ethiopian heritage must enter the army, and this means Teo is to be drafted.
Wein once again earned widespread praise from reviewers. Writing in Horn Book, Baker noted of Black Dove, White Raven: “The intellectual, psychological, and emotional substance of this story is formidable, and Wein makes it all approachable and engaging.” Similarly, a Guardian Online contributor termed it “extraordinarily compelling,” adding: “From the first page, I felt like I was inside the story; I could almost imagine I was flying a plane into the empty Ethiopian sky, or listening to the yipping of hyenas in the distance.” BookPage writer Deborah Hopkinson also had a positive assessment of this “warmhearted, ambitious new novel,” noting that it has “the scope of a complex family saga, as the paths of the women and their children intertwine and, sometimes painfully, separate.” Hopkinson delineated the aspects of Wein’s work that draw readers to it: “fierce and powerful storytelling; strong and complex characters; an authenticity that comes with thorough and dedicated research; and, of course, a love of flying.” Writing in the Voice of Youth Advocates, Alicia Abdul likewise commented of the novel: “Its richness is character-driven and situational as the protagonists explore their loyalties and friendship while they also create new identities,” and Booklist critic Sarah Hunter observed: “A good piece of historical fiction is a taut balancing act, and Wein walks a high-wire in her latest.” Hunter further remarked: “As the war builds to a frightening crescendo, Wein truly demonstrates her masterful hand. While subtly remarking on the politics of the conflict and touching on key historical events, she keeps the narrative firmly grounded in Teo and Em’s experiences” A Publishers Weekly reviewer commended the book’s “well-engineered plot twists, lots of high-flying, nail-biting tension, and meticulous research,” while a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded: “Wein’s forceful prose will carry readers past any sense of contrivance. Unforgettable.”
The Pearl Thief
In The Pearl Thief, Wein “masterfully weaves a story of friendship, love and loss against the backdrop of the breathtaking Scottish Highlands,” commented Kimberly Giarratano, writing in BookPage. The novel features Julia “Julie” Beaufort-Smith, who first appeared in Wein’s Code Name Verity. The story is a prequel featuring a fifteen-year-old Julie and a series of mysterious events surrounding the sale of her family’s Scottish estate.
In 1938, Julie returns from school to the diminished estate, overcome by sadness and nostalgia at the idea that the old family home is going to be sold to pay her late grandfather’s medical bills. She works to help her mother and grandmother pack away belongings and prepare the estate for sale. During a melancholy break beside the river where she and her grandfather used to hunt for river pearls, she is assaulted and left for dead. When she regains consciousness, she finds that she has been rescued by a family of Travelers, who are suspected in her attack by the local townspeople. Julie doesn’t believe the poorly treated Travelers have anything to do with her assault, and she is grateful for their help. In the meantime, Dr. Housman, an archivist working to document antiques an other valuable items at the estate, has gone missing. Julie believes that her attack and the disappearance of Housman are connected.
Adding intrigue to the story are other elements, such as extremely valuable three-thousand-year-old river pearls, a dead body washed up on the riverbank, Julie’s maturation and sexual exploration, and outrage at the injustices suffered by the Travelers.
Throughout the novel, Wein’s “ability to inhabit a young woman of another era has more than enough room to shine through in the often witty first-person narration,” commented Shoshana Flax, writing in Horn Book. The Pearl Thief will appeal to “fans of the first book, as well as historical fiction buffs,” noted Debbie Kirchhoff in Voice of Youth Advocates. A Kirkus Reviews writer observed: “Well-developed characters highlight the class differences that Julie chafes against while struggling with her family’s place in a changing world.” Booklist writer Ilene Cooper called the novel a “finely crafted book that brings one girl’s coming-of-age story to life, especially poignant for those who already know her fate.”
[resume new]
The Enigma Game
Wein returns to the fictionalized World War II milieu established in Code Name Verity with The Enigma Game. Orphaned by the Nazis’ bombing, Jamaican British fifteen-year-old Louisa Adair secures work as the escort for an elderly German opera singer hoping to lay low near her niece’s inn at an airbase. Teens Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, a flight leader, and Ellen McEwen, a clandestine Traveller serving as a volunteer driver, get involved when a German pilot stashes an Enigma machine at the inn, holding the promise to enable the Allies to crack the Germans’ codes—and Louisa finds it.
School Library Journal reviewer Luann Toth reckoned The Enigma Game an “exhilarating and atmospheric read” buoyed by “daring action in the air, and high-stakes intrigue on the ground.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer declared that Wein “seamlessly weaves extensive research into a thriller populated by fully dimensional characters.” A Kirkus Reviews writer deemed The Enigma Game historical fiction “at its finest,” shedding light on a past era while raising still-relevant questions surrouding class, race, nationality, and belonging. The reviewer called this novel of Wein’s “another soaring success.”
Stateless
Inspired by lore surrounding the interwar period, Wein brings the late 1930s to life for a cadre of young-adult aviators in Stateless. When a famous aviator hoping to foster international camaraderie hosts a race for twelve young pilots in 1937, seventeen-year-old Stella North is proud to represent Britain (and aims to keep her origins as a Russian refugee secret). With a German, a Dutch Jew, an antifascist Frenchman, and a Mussolini-allied Italian also involved, tension is ratcheted up when Stella witnesses one pilot apparently murdering another by forced crash. Unanticipated alliances will prove essential to Stella’s, and everyone else’s, survival.
A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed that “danger and intrigue abound” in Wein’s latest historically authentic adventure, “which boasts a large cast whose unusual and dramatically shifting dynamics make for a savory read.” In School L ibrary Journal, Susan Catlett affirmed that Wein “ displays a wonderful understanding of both the complexity of the interwar years in Europe and the complicated motivations of the human condition.” With the Second World War looming in the narrative’s future, a Kirkus Reviews writer observed that the amiable conclusion to this “thrilling, terrifying read … will feel bittersweet.”
A Thousand Sisters
Drawing on her years of piloting experience and interest in the history of aviation, especially among women, Wein made her nonfiction debut with A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II. Anchoring the narrative is the life of Marina Raskova, a Soviet aviation pioneer who spurred the creation of three regiments of women pilots in the thick of World War II. The account of Raskova’s early life helps Wein illuminate politics and daily life in the Soviet Union under Stalin and its juxtaposition with Nazi Germany. Once World War II is underway, Wein profiles the women who boldly contributed to the national drive to defeat Hitler, including the “Night Witches” of the women’s night-bombing regiment. Comparisons with women’s roles in the Royal Air Force and the U.S. military lend additional context.
Observing that Wein is “renowned for her vivid prose, compelling characters and riveting plots in historical fiction,” Deborah Hopkinson in BookPage affirmed that the author adeptly wields her “masterful storytelling skills” in this nonfiction effort. In Horn Book, Deirdre F. Baker proclaimed that the “personalities and skills of the airwomen come alive” as Wein depicts “how they exerted femininity and solidarity in the thick of brutal living conditions.” A Kirkus Reviews writer likewise declared that “vivid descriptions of their personal sacrifices and the deep bonds they formed connect readers to the story.”
American Wings
Wein teamed up with Sherri L. Smith to coauthor American Wings: Chicago’s Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky. Auto mechanics Cornelius Coffey and Johnny Robinson dreamed of becoming pilots but had to threaten a lawsuit to gain admission to the Curtiss-Wright School of Aviation in Chicago. Taking inspiration from early Black pilot Bessie Coleman, they demonstrated their pluck continuously over the years, ushering in a new generation of Black pilots—including teacher Willa Brown and nurse Janet Harmon Bragg—gaining ownership of an airport, partnering with the Tuskegee Institute, and giving essential lessons to the airmen of Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia in the face of Italian fascism.
Praising the “accessible and buoyant” prose, a Kirkus Reviews writer deemed American Wings a “fascinating, well-told American story full of compelling innovation” that details “how brilliant and resourceful early-20th-century Black aviators created their own runway to the skies.” In School Library Journal, Susan Catlett summed American Wings up as “a vivid and accurate recounting of the struggles and triumphs of the desegregation of Chicago aviation.”[close new]
Author Comments
Wein once commented: “When I was seven, and living in Jamaica, my grandmother designed her own ‘Book-of-the-Month Club’ service for me. Some of the books she sent me were not bookstore-new: she sent her own copy of The Secret Garden, and my aunt’s copy of a wonderful French novel called The Horse without a Head, and my mother’s old copies of Henry Huggins and Ellen Tebbits. But they were all books new to me. She sent A Little Princess, The High King, and every single one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I don’t remember graduating from picture books to chapter books, but I think it happened when I was seven. My grandmother sent me the best stories I’d ever read, and I knew that I was going to write books like these.
“I went around for twenty years after that telling people ‘I’m going to be a writer’ or ‘I want to be a writer,’ and it was one of the hardest transitions of my life to change that statement to ‘I am a writer.’
“There are messages in my writing, and morals, but I don’t put them there on purpose. I write because I have a story to tell. I write for myself: The Winter Prince is what I was looking for to read when I was sixteen. Once when I was rereading it, I thought in astonishment, ‘If I hadn’t written this it would be my favorite book.’ Then it occurred to me: the book I write should be my favorite book. It’s in my power to create exactly the characters I want to get to know, playing out exactly the plot I want to follow.
“This power amazes me. More and more, as I get older, I find myself drawing on my own experiences and feelings when I write, making fictional use of real things that have happened to me. I can change the ending. I can repeat good things over and over. I can work through the bad times honorably and methodically, instead of stumbling blindly into the future. I can change destiny. Someone, somewhere, may be warned not to make the mistakes I made, through my manipulation. I can go back in time. I can rearrange things. I longed for magic when I was a child—other writers’ books brought tantalizing, fleeting glimpses of glitter and glamour that might be mine. Through reading I could become enchanted, and the magic seemed real. Now, as a writer in my own right, it is real. I can make the worlds I wanted so much to be part of. I wished myself Aladdin, with a magician at my beck; instead I have become the magician.
“A fiction writer is by definition a liar. That’s the paradox of my life: through fiction I can come at the truth.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 15, 1993, Chris Sherman, review of The Winter Prince, p. 615; February 15, 2003, Karin Snelson, review of A Coalition of Lions, p. 1065; June 1, 2007, Gillian Engberg, review of The Lion Hunter, p. 58; July 1, 2008, Gillian Engberg, review of The Empty Kingdom, p. 62; May 1, 2012, Daniel Kraus, review of Code Name Verity, p. 50; August 1, 2013, Ilene Cooper, review of Rose under Fire, p. 81; March 15, 2015, Sarah Hunter, “Spiderwebs Joined Together: High-Flying Danger, Ethiopian History, and a Sensitive Portrayal of Two Remarkable Teens Are at the Heart of Elizabeth Wein’s Latest,” review of Black Dove, White Raven, p. 64; March 1, 2017, Ilene Cooper, review of The Pearl Thief, p. 64; December 1, 2023, Carolyn Phelan, review of American Wings: Chicago’s Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky, p. 117.
BookPage, April, 2015, Deborah Hopkinson, “Slipping the Surly Bonds,” review of Black Dove, White Raven, p. 28; May, 2017, Kimberly Giarratano, “The Making of a Legend,” review of The Pearl Thief, p. 27; February, 2019, Deborah Hopkinson, review of A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II, p. 27.
Book Report, January 1, 1994, Holly Wadsworth, review of The Winter Prince, p. 50.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, July 1, 2007, Karen Coats, review of The Lion Hunter, p. 490; April, 2008, Karen Coats, review of The Empty Kingdom, p. 360.
Horn Book, March, 1994, Ann A. Flowers, review of The Winter Prince, p. 208; March, 2003, Anita L. Burkam, review of A Coalition of Lions, p. 218; March-April, 2004, Anita L. Burkam, review of The Sunbird, p. 191; July, 2007, Anita L. Burkam, review of The Lion Hunter; March, 2008, Claire E. Gross, review of The Empty Kingdom; May, 2012, Deirdre F. Baker, review of Code Name Verity, p. 101; November-December, 2013, Deirdre F. Baker, review of Rose under Fire, p. 109; May-June, 2014, Deirdre F. Baker, “An Interview with Elizabeth Wein,” p. 23; January-February, 2015, review of Rose under Fire, p. 40; May-June, 2015, Deirdre F. Baker, review of Black Dove, White Raven, p. 122; May-June, 2017, Shoshana Flax, review of The Pearl Thief, p. 107; July-August, 2019, Deirdre F. Baker, review of A Thousand Sisters, p. 150.
Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, November, 2003, Jean Boreen, review of A Coalition of Lions, pp. 268-269.
Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1993, review of The Winter Prince; April 1, 2003, review of A Coalition of Lions, p. 542; March 1, 2004, review of The Sunbird, p. 231; June 1, 2007, review of The Lion Hunter; March 1, 2008, review of The Empty Kingdom; July 15, 2013, review of Rose under Fire; January 15, 2015, review of Black Dove, White Raven; March 15, 2017, review of The Pearl Thief; November 15, 2018, review of A Thousand Sisters; March 1, 2020, review of The Enigma Game; January 1, 2023, review of Stateless; November 1, 2023, review of American Wings.
Kliatt, May 1, 2007, Claire Rosser, review of The Lion Hunter, p. 21; March 1, 2008, Claire Rosser, review of The Empty Kingdom, p. 22.
Library Journal, September 1, 1994, Nancy Dice, review of The Winter Prince, p. 244.
New York Times Book Review, May 13, 2012, Marjorie Ingall, review of Code Name Verity, p. 27.
Publishers Weekly, August 9, 1993, review of The Winter Prince, p. 480; April 16, 2012, review of Code Name Verity, p. 66; July 15, 2013, “Behind Enemy Lines,” review of Rose under Fire; annual, 2013, review of Rose under Fire, p. 129; spring, 2014, review of Rose under Fire, p. 129; January 26, 2015, review of Black Dove, White Raven, p. 170; March 6, 2017, review of The Pearl Thief, p. 62; December 4, 2017, review of The Pearl Thief, p. S123; April 6, 2020, review of The Enigma Game, p. 79; January 16, 2023, review of Stateless, p. 78.
Resource Links, December, 2013, Alison Edwards, review of Rose under Fire, p. 39.
School Librarian, summer, 2012, Rosamund Charlish, review of Code Name Verity, p. 124; autumn, 2013, Michael Holloway, review of Rose under Fire, p. 183.
School Library Journal, October, 1993, Jane Gardner Connor, review of The Winter Prince, p. 158; April, 2003, Jane G. Connor, review of A Coalition of Lions, p. 170; May, 2004, Mary N. Oluonye, review of The Sunbird, p. 158; September, 2007, Mara Alpert, review of The Lion Hunter, p. 210; May, 2008, Beth L. Meister, review of The Empty Kingdom, p. 140; July, 2012, Necia Blundy, review of Code Name Verity, p. 90; July, 2012, Rick Margolis, review of Code Name Verity and author interview, p. 17; October, 2013, Necia Blundy, review of Rose under Fire, p. 131; February, 2014, Julie Paladino, review of Rose under Fire, p. 57; March, 2015, Stephanie Klose, review of Black Dove, White Raven, p. 163; April, 2017, Janet Hilbun, review of The Pearl Thief, p. 159; December, 2018, Kaetlyn Phillips, review of A Thousand Sisters, p. 92; March, 2020, Luann Toth, review of The Enigma Game, p. 113; March, 2023, Susan Catlett, review of Stateless, p. 90; February, 2024, Susan Catlett, review of American Wings, p. 108.
Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 2004, “Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror 2003,” p. 15; August, 2007, Timothy Capehart, review of The Lion Hunter, p. 264; April, 2008, Timothy Capehart, review of The Empty Kingdom, p. 71; April, 2012, Susan Allen and Anya Schulman, review of Code Name Verity, p. 67; December, 2013, Sara Martin and Raluca Topliceanu, review of Rose under Fire, p. 68; April, 2015, Alicia Abdul, review of Black Dove, White Raven, p. 72; April, 2017, Debbie Kirchhoff, review of The Pearl Thief, p. 67.
ONLINE
Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/ (January 26, 2019), author Q&A; (November 3, 2020), author Q&A; (July 8, 2023), author Q&A.
Elizabeth Wein website, https://elizabethwein.com (July 26, 2024).
Greenman Review, http://www.greenmanreview.com/ (July 8, 2009), Richard Dansky, review of The Empty Kingdom.
Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/ (May 13, 2015), review of Black Dove, White Raven.
Historical Writers’ Association website, http://www.thehwa.co.uk/ (November 12, 2012), author profile.
Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/ (September 20, 2013), Elisabeth Egan, review of Rose under Fire.
National Public Radio website, http://www.npr.org/ (May 4, 2017), Amal El-Mohtar, “The Pearl Thief Is Part Murder Mystery, Part Coming-of-Age Tale,” review of The Pearl Thief.
Novl, https://www.thenovl.com/ (July 26, 2024), Savannah Kennelly, “1 Author, 7 Questions: Elizabeth Wein.”
Sarah Laurence Blog, http://blog.sarahlaurence.com/ (September 4, 2013), “Rose under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein, Interview and Review.”
SF Site, http://sfsite.com/ (July 8, 2009), Sherwood Smith, reviews of The Lion Hunter and The Empty Kingdom.
TeenReads, http://www.teenreads.com/ (November 12, 2012), author profile.
Thirst for Fiction, http://www.thirstforfiction.com/ (May 5, 2015), “Elizabeth Wein: Ethiopia, Flying and ‘Foreignness’.”
Note: My last name, Wein, is pronounced “ween” – rhymes with teen and queen!
I was born in New York City in 1964, and moved to England when I was three. I went to school in a little village just outside Alderley Edge, the setting for Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, and parts of Elidor – books which my father, Norman Wein, read aloud to me, starting my lifelong love of reading. My father had been sent to England to help organize the Headstart programme at what is now Manchester Metropolitan University. When I was six, my father was sent to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica for three years to do the same thing in Kingston.
We lived in Jamaica from 1970-1973, and I loved it – I even became fluent in Jamaican patois. It was in Jamaica that I first started to read independently, and quickly moved on to writing. At the age of seven, my best friend and I completed a “book” called The Hidden Treasure as part of a “mystery series” based on the Hardy Boys – ours was a feminized version, of course, called “The Churcha Girls.”
When my parents separated, my younger brother and sister and I ended up back in the USA living with our mother, Carol Flocken, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. When she died in a car accident in 1978, her parents took us in and raised us; Betty Flocken, my maternal grandmother, became the most influential figure of my life. She lived to the ripe old age of 98, and was probably my greatest fan. Though she was mostly blinded by macular degeneration towards the end of her life, she continued to enjoy my stories, and when my aunt read the opening chapters of Black Dove, White Raven out loud to her, she commented that the characters in it reminded her of me and my brother in Jamaica!
I went to Yale University, spent a work-study year back in England, and then spent seven years getting a PhD in Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where I held a Javits Fellowship. While in Philadelphia I learned to ring church bells in the English style known as “change ringing”, and in 1991 I met my future husband there at a bell ringers’ dinner-dance. Tim is English, and in 1995 I moved to England with him, and then to Scotland in 2000, where we’ve been ever since. We still ring church bells every Sunday at Dunkeld Cathedral on the banks of the River Tay.
It was Tim’s enthusiasm for small planes that inspired me to learn to fly. Tim got his private pilot’s license in 1993 and I got mine ten years later. Together we have flown in the USA from Kalamazoo to New Hampshire; in Kenya we toured from Nairobi to Malindi, on the coast, and also all over southern England and Scotland. Learning to fly changed the focus of my novels from Arthurian legend to aviation!
I’ve now lived half my life in the UK, most of it in Scotland. I am a dual American/British citizen, and I am proud and grateful to call Scotland my home and to be considered a “Scottish writer”, having written all but the first of my books here. Tim and I have two grown children who were both raised in Scotland.
Code Name Verity, published in 2012, was my first full-length World War II story. On World Book Day in March 2020, it hit Number 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list – teaching me a great lesson in patience and perseverance!
Elizabeth Wein
UK flag (b.1964)
Elizabeth Wein was born in New York, and grew up in England, Jamaica and Pennsylvania. She is married with two children and now lives in Perth, Scotland.
Elizabeth is a member of the Ninety-Nines, the International Organization of Women Pilots. She was awarded the Scottish Aero Club's Watson Cup for best student pilot in 2003 and it was her love of flying that partly inspired the idea for her bestselling, award-winning novel Code Name Verity.
Awards: ITW (2024), CrimeFest (2024), Edgar (2013) see all
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Children's Fiction
Series
Lion Hunter: Arthurian sequence
1. The Winter Prince (1993)
2. A Coalition of Lions (2003)
3. The Sunbird (2004)
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Lion Hunters: Mark of Solomon
1. The Lion Hunter (2007)
2. The Empty Kingdom (2008)
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Code Name Verity
1. Code Name Verity (2012)
2. Rose Under Fire (2013)
The Pearl Thief (2017)
The Enigma Game (2019)
Code Name Verity Collection (2021)
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Novels
Black Dove, White Raven (2015)
White Eagles (2019)
The Last Hawk (2021)
Stateless (2023)
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Collections
The Lion Hunters Novels (2018)
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Novellas and Short Stories
Firebird (2018)
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Series contributed to
Star Wars : The Last Jedi
Cobalt Squadron (2017)
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Non fiction hide
A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II (2019)
American Wings (2024) (with Sherri L Smith)
Elizabeth E. Wein
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elizabeth Wein
Born Elizabeth E. Wein
October 2, 1964 (age 59)
New York City, U.S.
Nationality American
Citizenship American, British
Notable works Code Name Verity
Website
Official website
Elizabeth E. Wein (/wiːn/, born October 2, 1964) is an American-born writer best known for her young adult historical fiction. She holds both American and British citizenship.
Personal life
Elizabeth E. Wein was born in New York City on October 2, 1964. She moved to England when she was three. When she was six, her father, Norman Wein, was sent to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, where she lived from 1970 to 1973. As a child, she was fluent in Jamaican Patois.[1]
Wein moved back to the United States when her parents separated, and she was raised by her mother Carol Flocken in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania until her death in a car accident in 1978, after which Wein lived with her maternal grandparents. She wrote her first novel at age 11. Wein attended Yale University and, after a year of work-study in England, spent seven years getting a PhD in Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. Wein moved to England with her English husband Tim in 1995 and settled in Scotland in 2000. She and Tim have two children.[1]
Wein has a passion for planes, and she possesses a private pilot licence which she received in 2003.[1]
Writing career
Wein's first five books recount a version of the King Arthur stories which moves the narrative to the Kingdom of Aksum in 6th century Ethiopia. The stories focus on her interpretation of Medraut (Mordred) and his half-Aksumite, half-British son Telemakos.[2]
Her 2012 novel, Code Name Verity, is a World War II thriller focusing on the friendship between an English women, and a Scottish women, [3] a transport pilot and a spy. It received critical acclaim;[4] it was awarded an Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel and designated a Michael L. Printz Award Honor book in 2013.[5] A follow-up novel, Rose Under Fire, also set in World War II,[6] tells the story of an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot who is captured and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.[7]
Wein's short stories have been published in collections edited by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, and Sharyn November.[8] She is a regular reviewer for the New York Times Book Review.[9]
Works
Novels
Black Dove, White Raven (Disney-Hyperion, February 2015, ISBN 978-1423183105)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Cobalt Squadron (Disney-Lucasfilm Press, 2017, ISBN 1368008372)
Firebird (Barrington Stoke, 2018, ISBN 9781781128312)
White Eagles (Barrington Stoke, 2019, ISBN 978-1781128961)
Code Name Verity sequence
Code Name Verity (Egmont UK, 2012; Disney-Hyperion, 2012, ISBN 978-1423152194; Doubleday Canada, 2012)
Rose Under Fire (Egmont UK, June 2013; Disney-Hyperion, September 2013, ISBN 978-1423183099; Doubleday Canada, September 2013)
The Pearl Thief (Disney-Hyperion, May 2017, ISBN 978-1484717165)
The Enigma Game (Bloomsbury Children's (UK), May 2020, ISBN 978-1526601650)
Notes
These take place before or during World War II and share a number of recurring characters.
The Lion Hunters: the Arthurian/Aksumite Cycle
The Winter Prince (Atheneum, 1993; reissued by Firebird Books, 2003, ISBN 978-0142500149)
A Coalition of Lions (Viking, 2003)
The Sunbird (Viking, 2004)
The Mark of Solomon 1: The Lion Hunter (Viking, 2007)
The Mark of Solomon 2: The Empty Kingdom (Viking, 2008)
Short stories
"Change of Heart". In From a Certain Point of View (Star Wars). ed. Elizabeth Schaefer. New York: Del Rey, 2017.
"The Color of the Sky". In A Tyranny of Petticoats. ed. Jessica Spotswood. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2016.
"The Battle of Elphinloan". In Taking Aim. ed. Michael Cart. New York: HarperTeen, 2015.
"For the Briar Rose". In Queen Victoria's Book of Spells. ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. New York: Tor, 2013.
"Something Worth Doing". In Firebirds Soaring. ed. Sharyn November. New York: Firebird Books, 2009.
"Always the Same Story". In The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales. ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. New York: Viking, 2007.
"Chain of Events". In Rush Hour: Reckless. ed. Michael Cart. New York: Delacorte Books for Young Readers, June 2006.
"Chasing the Wind". In Firebirds. ed. Sharyn November. New York: Firebird Books, 2003.
"A Dear Gazelle". In Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine Issue 47 (2000), pp. 34–38.
"The Ethiopian Knight". In Odyssey: A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy Issue 7 (1998), pp. 42–46.
"No Human Hands to Touch". In Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers. ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. New York: HarperPrism, 1998; reprinted New York: Eos, 2002.
"The Bellcaster’s Apprentice". In The Horns of Elfland. ed. Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Donald G. Keller. New York: Roc/Penguin USA, 1997.
"New Year’s Eve". In Not the Only One. ed. Tony Grima. Boston: Alyson Press, 1995.
"Fire". In Writers of the Future. Vol. IX. ed. Dave Wolverton. Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, 1993.
Nonfiction
A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II (Balzer + Bray, 2019, ISBN 978-0-06-245301-3)[10]
1 Author, 7 Questions: Elizabeth Wein
BY SAVANNAH KENNELLY
Elizabeth Wein has done it again! The Code Name Verity author and WWII mystery maven returns with another high-flying thriller, Stateless! We sat down with her to talk all about her new book, her writing process, and of course flying!
What Was Your Initial Inspiration For Stateless?
In January 2020, my husband had a big birthday and we spent a week in Key West to celebrate. While we were there I visited Ernest Hemingway’s house, which inspired me to re-read For Whom the Bell Tolls – I hadn’t read it since high school. I ended up kind of fascinated by the Spanish Civil War. Although I didn’t feel I knew enough about Spain in 1937 to set a story there, it got me thinking about how the fall-out of that war influenced the rest of Europe – particularly while it was still going on. An air race set during that time, with contestants from all over the continent, seemed like a good way to show how connected we all are.
So it all started in Key West!
CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR WRITING PROCESS? ARE YOU A PRE-PLOTTER OR DO YOU DEVELOP THE PLOT AS YOU WRITE?
I am definitely the kind of writer who expects inspiration to arrive in the middle of a novel. And it usually does, although it can be very frustrating waiting for it to come along! In Stateless, the key plot twist came very late in the day, when I figured out what the connection was between two very different characters in the story. That tiny piece of information really tied everything together, but like the reader, I didn’t find out about it until about three-quarters of the way through the book!
I don’t usually work with a detailed outline. But for this book, which focuses around an air race, I had to draw up a schedule for every single racing day, with the start and end times of each racer, and notes about their planes’ air speed and fuel capacity. I couldn’t have written the book without this accurate “flight log”!
YOU’VE WRITTEN A NUMBER OF NOVELS SET DURING OR AROUND WWII. WHAT IS YOUR RESEARCH PROCESS LIKE? HAVE YOU FOUND THE RESEARCH PROCESS GET EASIER WITH EACH BOOK?
How I wish the research process got easier for each book! BUT NO. It’s even different for each book!
I usually start with BOOKS – reading material about the subject, both non-fiction and period fiction, is key. Period movies are also helpful. But I also like to get hands-on, visiting locations and museums and… well, anything, really. For Black Dove, White Raven, which features stunt pilots who do wing-walking, I tried out wing-walking, and got myself strapped to the upper wing of a vintage bi-plane while the pilot did steep turns and dives! (Reader, I LOVED IT.)
Every now and then I write a book that I’ve already done the research for, which is wonderful. For example, my short novel Firebird, about a girl pilot in the Soviet Union, was written while I was doing the research for A Thousand Sisters, my non-fiction book about Soviet women pilots in World War II.
FLIGHT IS A MASSIVE THEME IN A NUMBER OF YOUR NOVELS, AND YOU EVEN HAVE YOUR PILOT’S LICENSE! WHAT IS IT ABOUT AIRPLANES AND FLYING THAT YOU FIND SO ATTRACTIVE?
I felt like a bit of an imposter as a “pilot” until I’d actually flown solo for the first time. After all, anyone can take a flight lesson if one scrapes together the money or joins a flight program. When I was finally able to fly on my own, I felt as though I’d entered a new and amazing world, and because I’m a writer, I wanted to write about it.
I guess it also appeals to the little girl in me who obsessively read sci-fi comics and swooned over Han Solo in the original Star Wars! Writing about flight means that I can imagine plausible adventure scenarios that might really have happened. I love coming up with wildly improbable plots that don’t actually push the boundaries of genuine possibility. We live in an exciting and amazing world!
I AM ABSOLUTELY IN AWE AT YOUR THRILLING PLOTS! THE TWISTS ARE ABSOLUTELY UNMATCHED! NOT TO GIVE AWAY ANY OF YOUR SECRETS, BUT COULD YOU GIVE US SOME INSIGHT AS TO HOW YOU STRUCTURE YOUR PLOT TWISTS?
I really can’t. I wish I could – I wish I had some secrets, some arcane raven’s knowledge to impart, that there was an actual method I use to go about coming up with plot twists. But they happen organically, sometimes when I’m halfway through a book – sometimes even after I’ve finished the book I’ll have an “AHAH!” moment and go back and change things. I guess I just have a twisted mind.
I want to think of myself as a mystery writer, and every now and then I sit down and write a straightforward mystery novel – The Pearl Thief, and indeed Stateless itself – and when I do this I am OVERWHELMED by the complexity of coming up with plot. How do people do it? I don’t know. I end up tearing my hair out. My editor spotted the real villain in The Pearl Thief before I did!
When I wrote Code Name Verity, I didn’t know what Verity’s mission was, or her job, or even the point of her story, until I’d written 150 pages of the novel! And one of the big “twists” in that book I didn’t even see until it was published and other readers started commenting on it!
To try to give an answer to this question in good faith, probably what happens is that it is my characters, in their complexity, who engineer the plot twists themselves. If I create a truly wonderful character, one will have hidden depths that will drive the plot. If there are several characters with hidden depths, their conflicting past and present actions will generate those twists. I always do say: Plot is character, character is plot!
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN READING RECENTLY OR WOULD RECOMMEND?
Everything by Rumer Godden! I only just discovered her as an adult. She was a British twentieth-century writer, raised in India, and she wrote a wide variety of novels for children and adults over nearly fifty years. Her books are innovative and diverse and full of charismatic and problematic characters. She’s probably best known for The Greengage Summer, which is based on a trip she took with her family to France in the 1920s – it’s a combination coming-of-age novel and a mystery with a jewel thief and it’s just an exquisite piece of work. My favorite of her books is Kingfishers Catch Fire, about a truly bonkers single mother, Sophie Barrington Ward, who takes her small children to live what she hopes will be an idyllic life in the wilds of Kashmir in India in the middle of World War II. It’s a harrowing book (and like The Greengage Summer, also vaguely autobiographical), but I love it because the hapless Sophie reminds me so much of my own young idealistic mother, inflicting her dreams on her stolid children – Sophie rather more successfully than my own mother, which makes me a little envious, too.
I’ve never read a Rumer Godden book I didn’t enjoy, and while many of them have similar themes and motifs threaded through them, they’re all different.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW? ANY EXCITING IDEAS YOU CAN SHARE?
I’m just finishing up a joint project with fellow YA author Sherri L. Smith. We’re writing a non-fiction book called American Wings, about a group of Black aviators who flew in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. These pioneering men and women were largely responsible for the integration of the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which gave most of the Tuskegee Airmen their initial training, and their efforts led to the eventual integration of the US Air Force. It’s been really wonderful to collaborate with another writer on this enormous project – Sherri and I split the work, making separate trips to different research collections, and we met up in my family home in Pennsylvania last fall so we could spend a week completing the manuscript. The book is scheduled for publication in February 2024.
As for fiction, I think I’d like to try another mystery. But it’s in the early planning stages so my lips are sealed. Watch this space!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NOVL - Author Elizabeth Wein
Elizabeth Wein is the holder of a private pilot’s license and the owner of about a thousand maps. She is best known for her historical fiction about young women flying in World War II, including the New York Times bestselling Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire. Elizabeth is also the author of Cobalt Squadron, a middle grade novel set in the Star Wars universe and connected to the 2017 release The Last Jedi. Elizabeth lives in Scotland and holds both British and American citizenship. She invites you to visit her online at www.elizabethwein.com.
Saturday, July 8, 2023
Q&A with Elizabeth Wein
Elizabeth Wein is the author of the new young adult historical novel Stateless. Her other novels include Code Name Verity. She lives in Scotland.
Q: What inspired you to write Stateless, and how did you create your character Stella North?
A: I belong to a Facebook group called The Aviatrix Book Club, now with over 2,000 members, founded by writer and former Coast Guard helicopter pilot Liz Booker. Interested readers can join via her website, The Aviatrix Book Review (https://aviatrixbookreview.com/), which provides all kinds of content by and about women in aviation.
I contributed to both groups (probably not enough!) very early on in their existence, and some of the reading that I did interested me in early air racing – particularly by women (I am a big fan of Steve Sheinkin’s nonfiction book for young readers, Born to Fly, about the 1929 women’s air race across America).
I’m also a big fan of a little-known Disney film called The Rocketeer, which, while not about air racing, is all about barnstorming and air circuses and early flight adventures. So Stateless was a chance to put characters of my own into that world for a little while.
For Stella, I actually drew on a variety of early 20th century literary heroines to sketch her out – Sara Crewe in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess was one of them!
As with all my books set in the 1930s, I tried to find a “voice” for her that was similar to the narrative voice of Nancy Mitford’s books, written during that time (Mitford has an exuberant youthful character whose first name is actually “Northey,” and while Stella is not much like that character – I’d call her determined rather than exuberant – I confess that “Northie” as a nickname for Stella North was inspired by Mitford.)
But like all my characters, Stella turned into herself as I wrote the book!
Q: In the book's Author's Note, you write, “I did not set out to write a book about refugees. This isn't a book about refugees; it's a book about belonging, about belonging in no place and every place.” Can you say more about that, and about how the book's title was chosen?
A: Apparently a lot of my characters do become refugees at one time or another – from King Arthur’s daughter leaving her wartorn country in A Coalition of Lions (2003), to Em Menotti and Teo Dupre fleeing from Ethiopia just as it falls to the Italian army (2015), to Kristina Tomiak and Julian Srebro stealing a plane and flying to England to escape the German army as it swarms into Poland (2019).
I have often remarked that almost every book I’ve ever written is about people who are displaced from their native country.
But I didn’t notice that I often wrote about refugees until I wrote Stateless, in which all three of the main characters are forced, for their own survival, to spontaneously escape their home nations, leaving behind everything. And yet these characters manage to remain inherently themselves. Your nationality shapes you, but it doesn’t have to define you. I think that’s important to remember.
Stateless doesn’t focus on the refugee experience; it focuses on what it means to change your nationality, to change your loyalty, and to maintain your sense of self.
I am a dual citizen; I was born an American citizen, and acquired British citizenship in 2016. As I write, only yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who has decided to renounce US citizenship. That is such an enormous decision. When I said I wasn’t going to do that, this person commented, “Well, at least you’d still have your British passport. You wouldn’t be stateless.”
The fact that my own potential statelessness can come up in ordinary conversation is witness to what an enormously meaningful thing it is to me as an immigrant and a global citizen.
I chose the title while I was doing research on the Nansen passport, which was designed in the 1920s to provide a recognized travel ID for stateless people. The word jumped out at me. I was kind of fascinated by the meaning of statelessness, and I thought that Stateless as a title sounded simple and striking.
Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the book says, in part, “Danger and intrigue abound in this historically accurate aeronautic adventure…” What do you think of that description, and how did you research the novel?
A: I think it’s pretty cool that a source like Publishers Weekly finds my writing to be historically accurate!
I do try my best. But Stateless was a lockdown novel, so I did most of my research in books and online – I didn’t get to travel!
One of the things I most enjoyed about the research was the armchair travelling – being able to dream about or relive journeys all over Europe. It was a real pleasure flying to Venice this spring (2023) and thinking about Stella crossing the Alps in the same way – it seemed so impossible and distant while I was writing it in 2020.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: My message to young readers, if I have one, is consistently “Take responsibility for your own actions” – but in this book, take responsibility for others as well, hence the quotations from John Donne’s “No Man Is an Island” which pepper the book. We are all connected. I think that’s the take-away that’s specific to Stateless; no one is an island. As Stella says, “Our choices matter.”
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m just finishing up a collaborative nonfiction project with fellow young adult writer Sherri L. Smith. It’s called American Wings: Chicago’s Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky.
It’s about a group of Black pilots, men and women together, who built their own airfield in the 1930s and together more or less brought about the eventual integration of the US Air Force. It’s being released by G.P. Putnam in January 2024. (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/658415/american-wings-by-sherri-l-smith-and-elizabeth-wein/ )
At the moment I’m exploring topics for my next work of fiction! I have a few ideas but nothing concrete yet!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Vladimir Nabokov, the incredibly talented author of Lolita and many other novels, was a stateless refugee with a Nansen passport in the first part of the 20th century, before he emigrated to the USA and became an American citizen. He grew up in St. Petersburg and his aristocratic family fled from the Russian Revolution when he was in his teens.
I vaguely based Stella’s background on Nabokov’s – I knew that his father had been murdered when he was in his early twenties – and it was in researching Nabokov that I discovered the existence of the Nansen passport, which led to the theme that gives Stateless its title.
Thank you so much for your continued support of my books, Deborah, and for the opportunity to share some of my writing adventures!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Elizabeth Wein.
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Q&A with Elizabeth Wein
Elizabeth Wein is the author of the new young adult historical novel The Enigma Game. Her many other books include Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief. She lives in Scotland.
Hello Deborah, it’s a delight to be a guest on your blog again! You are such a wonderful supporter and it’s extremely kind of you to take the time to interview me. I don’t know how you manage to keep your busy schedule balanced and I always enjoy your questions!
Q: Thanks so much—it’s always great to host you on the blog!
How did you come up with the idea for your new novel, The Enigma Game?
A: The original spark came in 2014, when I was lucky enough to take a flight in a World War II era Lancaster bomber, one of only two such aircraft still flying today.
After our flight, the pilot told me a story about being in a pub in England where the beam above the bar was studded with old coins. When he’d reached up to try to pull one out and take a look, the bartender told him, “Don’t touch those. That’s dead men’s money.”
The coins had been placed there by wartime pilots before missions – if they came back alive, they’d pull out their coins and buy a drink. If they didn’t come back, the coins stayed there – and many of them are still there to this day.
I didn’t write The Enigma Game for another few years, but I knew I wanted to tell a story about the pilots who left those coins in the pub.
The other thing I really wanted to write about was the relationship between a young person and an old person! That’s how I got the idea for Louisa Adair, who narrates about half the book, and Jane Warner, the old woman Louisa is hired to care for.
Throw in an Enigma machine and some code that needs breaking, and the plot for The Enigma Game began to take shape, as I gave Louisa and Jane the opportunity to translate mysterious messages for the bomber squadron that was leaving their coins in the bar.
Q: On your website, the book is listed as part of the “Code Name Verity World.” How do you see those novels connecting to one another, and can you read them independently?
A: Every one of the novels in the “Code Name Verity World” can be read independently – they are very much stand-alones, completely separate stories that have their own sets of characters (Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief share a narrator, but all the others have completely different narrators, too).
People often ask if they should be read in chronological order, and I think the answer is no – they should be read in order of publication. A little bit of hindsight enriches the prequels – though any one of them can be picked up on its own.
My real reason for re-visiting this world is that I keep making up backstory for it, and then I really want to write that!
It seemed silly to make up an entirely new flight squadron to write about in The Enigma Game when I knew, because it is mentioned in Code Name Verity, that Jamie from that book had been flying Bristol Blenheim bomber aircraft earlier in the war. It seemed very natural to give some of the narrative to him, and to use this book to explore his own wartime adventures.
For me, it’s a bit like being a tourist obsessed with one particular place. I keep going back because I haven’t seen all the sights yet, and there always seems to be something I’ve missed! But I don’t need to visit the castle and the beach and the museum on the same visit, or in any particular order, to enjoy them!
Q: How did you research this new book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: I wish I could tell you that I did all kinds of exciting travel and interviews, but mostly I just read. I read about British alien internment camps and about Caribbean men and women in service in the United Kingdom in World War II, and about German Luftwaffe pilots who defected to Britain, and about Royal Air Force airmen who were shot down while flying Bristol Bomber aircraft.
There were some wonderful hands-on moments, though. I went to a lecture by an Enigma machine expert and got to actually see how it works and to press the keys of a real wartime German coding machine.
I visited the aviation museum at RAF Hendon, in London, and poked my head into the cockpit of a restored Bristol Blenheim aircraft. I learned Morse code! It was a really interesting exercise and I’m glad I did it – I think it gave me a much greater appreciation of the difficulties and pitfalls you might encounter while both using and mastering it.
And I flew up and down the Aberdeenshire coast and out over the North Sea to get a feel for the view from the cockpit, and also to get an overhead view of the site where my imaginary wartime airfield is based.
Q: The Kirkus Review of the book says it raises “questions still relevant today, particularly around class and race, nationality and belonging.” What do you think of that assessment?
A: I was really thrilled that they said this. One of my chief aims in writing historical fiction is to hold a mirror to the present – to help readers recognize themselves in the people who went before us. I also want very much for readers to relate to my characters and their situations – I want my books to feel alive and relevant to today’s young people.
“That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been; And God requires an account of what is past.” This quotation from Ecclesiastes is a good mantra for me. We can learn about ourselves from the past.
That review also called The Enigma Game “a novel thematically focused on the ways individuals matter,” and this might be the most wonderful thing anyone’s ever said in a review of one of my books. When I read that line, I’d just finished an obsessive double-read of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and I was absolutely thrilled that the reviewer picked up on that theme in my own book.
I hadn’t really put it in there on purpose, but it is something I feel strongly about – taking responsibility for our own actions – and knowing that we can each make a difference, no matter how unimportant we may feel.
Particularly in 2020, when our individual votes and our individual adherence to lockdown and social distancing rules are so important, I love that I can give readers something like a pattern to follow – or at least to think about!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m always working on several different projects! I’m currently writing a novel that involves flying around Europe in the 1930s; I’ve just finished another short novel about a young glider pilot for Barrington Stoke, a dyslexic-friendly publisher here in Scotland; and in the long term I’m working on another nonfiction project about aviation.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Please stop in on any of my virtual book tour events coming up during the first week of November 2020, when The Enigma Game is released! Details and links are on my website at https://www.elizabethwein.com/news.
And very best wishes for your own Thomas Jefferson and the Return of the Magic Hat!
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Q&A with Elizabeth Wein
Elizabeth Wein is the author of the new young adult book A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II. Her other books include the YA novels Code Name Verity and The Pearl Thief. She lives in Scotland.
Q: How did you learn about Soviet pilot Marina Raskova and her regiments of all-female flyers in World War II?
A: I confess that I don’t remember when or how I first became aware of the Soviet women who flew in World War II. I’ve known about them for at least 10 years – since before I wrote Code Name Verity, which I began writing in 2009.
In its earliest form I wanted to make Code Name Verity’s pilot heroine a Soviet flyer (absolutely true – this is why the character Maddie Brodatt is of Russian heritage.)
My notes tell me that in 2010 I read an obituary for one of Marina Raskova’s pilots, and heard a feature on BBC radio about them. My fictional character Irina Korsakova in Rose Under Fire is a Soviet fighter pilot, loosely based on the real pilots Anna Timofeyeva-Yegorova and Lilya Litvyak.
So they’ve been on my radar for about a decade – since I first started writing about women as pilots – and possibly longer!
Q: Why did Stalin choose to create these regiments, and were there similar squads of women pilots in other countries' armed forces during the war?
A: There’s no simple answer about why these regiments were created – as I soon discovered when I started to do the background research for A Thousand Sisters! I’ll try to be brief:
The USSR encouraged flight training for its youth in the 1930s, and although girls weren’t actively encouraged to become pilots, they were given the same opportunities as boys if they signed up to learn to fly. By the time World War II started, as much as a third of the USSR’s pilots were women.
Marina Raskova, a national celebrity for her record-setting flight achievements, convinced Stalin that these young women should be given an opportunity to fly in combat after the USSR entered the war. It’s not clear why he gave his seal of approval to the project.
It’s important to remember that these women were definitely an exception, even in the Soviet Union – there were only three women’s aviation regiments among hundreds of men’s regiments.
The idea that there was a “shortage” of male pilots is erroneous. The women’s regiments may have been intended as a propaganda opportunity, but it was never seriously exploited as such.
There weren’t any similar female squadrons anywhere else in the world. In the USA, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) flew transport missions on the home front. In the United Kingdom, women (and men) from a dozen Allied nations flew similar missions with the Air Transport Auxiliary.
Both these organizations were civilian, not military, and they did not engage in combat. By contrast, the women’s regiments in the USSR were part of the Soviet Air Force and flew both fighter and bombing missions in battle over the front lines.
Q: How did you research this book, and what did you learn that particularly surprised you?
A: The Soviet women who worked in aviation in World War II left behind a wealth of literature in memoirs and interviews, so that’s where I started.
And although they’re not widely known (even in Russia it seems like they’re not widely known), every now and then they attract some researcher’s attention and it becomes an obsession. So there is a lot of material available about them, in both English and Russian.
I also travelled to Russia in 2016, where I was able to visit museums to see the actual aircraft I was writing about, and to talk to contemporary Russian women pilots who had met some of these veterans – the one living vet that I was aware of was too frail for a meeting at the time, alas!
I was hampered in my research by the fact that I don’t read Russian. I was very lucky that so many primary source interviews are available in English – but it is something I have had to be very careful about, because I can’t cross-check the originals.
So many things about this story are surprising! The extremes of Russian winter cold that these women (and everybody else) worked in are pretty amazing – flying in open cockpits in -40 degrees, having to drain the aircraft radiators every night so they wouldn’t freeze, living in trenches dug underground in conditions so harsh that your hair would freeze to your bed overnight.
Also, just the intensity and determination of the aviators was surprising. One of the bomber regiments flew without parachutes for most of the war – the planes that regiment used never had radios, and by the end of the war each flight crew had flown nearly 1,000 missions – pretty much 10 missions each, every night of the war!
Q: What do you see as these women's legacy today, and what do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: I think that their legacy is only now coming to light. They were encouraged to keep quiet about their achievements, to go back to domestic life after the war. There are scarcely any women pilots in contemporary Russia – and only in this decade have all restrictions been lifted on American and British military women in combat.
So I think it’s important to remember and celebrate these women who fought and flew alongside men, even if it’s over 70 years since World War II ended, because the rising global generation is still fighting for gender equality.
If it doesn’t do anything else, I hope A Thousand Sisters broadens readers’ minds about what women are capable of achieving – as individuals and when they work together, with each other and with men. But even more than that, I hope it inspires young readers – whatever their gender – to realize they can make a difference. Maybe to learn to fly themselves!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m writing a new novel about young pilots in World War II!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Random aviation trivia: Only 5 percent of commercial pilots worldwide are women. In India that number is around 12 percent, though! I would love to see America catching up!
Thanks again for this interview, and I hope people enjoy A Thousand Sisters!
Top Pick: A Thousand Sisters
By Elizabeth Wein
Balzer + Bray, $19.99, 376 pages
9780062453013, audio, eBook available
Ages 13 and up
History
Award-winning author Elizabeth Wein is renowned for her vivid prose, compelling characters and riveting plots in historical fiction like Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire, both of which feature female pilots in World War II. In her new nonfiction work, A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II, Wein brings her masterful storytelling skills to the little-known role of female Soviet combat pilots known as the Night Witches.
Wein is a pilot herself, and her respect for these intrepid airwomen and the challenges they faced is clear. "This is the story of a generation of girls who were raised in the belief that they were as good as men, and who were raised to believe that it was their destiny to defend their nation in battle," she writes.
At the heart of the Soviet training program for women was pilot Marina Raskova, and by chronicling Raskova's youth against the backdrop of Russia's political climate, Wein effectively provides historical background for her audience. Raskova's achievements made her a natural as a flight instructor, and her three regiments of Soviet airwomen, including the famed 588th Night Bomber Regiment, became the first women to take part in combat operations. Wein follows a number of women whose exploits made history and also examines the social and political climate that caused the number of female pilots to drop after the war.
At a time when books on World War II are increasingly in demand, this fascinating story is sure to appeal to readers of all ages. In a closing section, Wein notes that only about 5 percent of commercial pilots today are women. By bringing attention to this little-known history, A Thousand Sisters just might help inspire some young readers to change that.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 BookPage
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Hopkinson, Deborah. "A Thousand Sisters." BookPage, Feb. 2019, p. 27. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A570439473/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=28bf5421. Accessed 26 June 2024.
A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II
by Elizabeth Wein
Middle School, High School
Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins 388 pp.
1/19 978-0-06-245301-3 $19.99
e-book ed. 978-0-06-245304-4 $8.99
Wein has established herself as a consummate writer of historical fiction (Code Name Verity, rev. 5/12; Rose Under Fire, rev. 11/13); here she exercises her considerable skill as a researcher, historian, and storyteller in a capacious history of the USSR's three regiments of airwomen during World War II. Beginning with Marina Raskova's advocacy for women pilots, and the formation of her all-women regiments of dive bombers, fighters, and night bombers (familiarly known as the "Night Witches"), Wein takes us deep into the training, daily lives, combat, and intense personal commitment these women experienced throughout the war. She clearly contextualizes their story within Stalin's regime, Nazism, and developments at the Eastern Front, but her passionate undergirding theme is the right of women to fly and, particularly, to fly in combat. The personalities and skills of the airwomen come alive, in part through accounts of night after night of flying and bombing and fighting, and in part through Wein's attention to how they exerted femininity and solidarity in the thick of brutal living conditions. An easy, friendly writing style--deceptive, given the acuity of Wein's perceptions and the extent of the material she manages--invites readers into the company of a formidable sisterhood. Illustrated throughout with maps and period photographs; appended with copious back matter, including meticulous source notes, a lengthy bibliography, an author's note, and an index. DEIRDRE F. BAKER
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Baker, Deirdre F. "A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 95, no. 4, July-Aug. 2019, p. 150. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A592556205/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=864e11f4. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Wein, Elizabeth A THOUSAND SISTERS Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (Young Adult Informational) $19.99 1, 22 ISBN: 978-0-06-245301-3
In her first work of nonfiction for teens, Wein (The Last Jedi, 2017, etc.) details the complex and inspiring story of the only women combat pilots of World War II.
The "Great Patriotic War" was already under way by the time Marina Raskova--a famous, record-breaking pilot--convinced the Soviet Union to create women's air regiments. Using photographs and primary source quotations, Wein brings these regiments of young women to life, tracing their harrowing experiences before, during, and after the war. A detailed overview of the Russian political and social landscape in the first half of the 20th century is interwoven throughout the narrative, contextualizing the Soviet Union's involvement in World War II. Wein thoughtfully addresses her readers' contemporary understanding of identity politics, acknowledging the homogeneity of her white (despite the ethnic diversity of the USSR), straight subjects and the ways that Soviet ideologies about gender align with or differ from the expectations of contemporary American readers. The Soviet women's experiences are placed in context through comparisons with the roles of women pilots in the Royal Air Force and the United States military. Vivid descriptions of their personal sacrifices and the deep bonds they formed connect readers to the story. Careful footnotes provide information about unfamiliar vocabulary, and pagelong sidebars round out the history with tangential but fascinating facts.
For readers invested in military and/or feminist history, this important book soars. (source notes, bibliography) (History. 14-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Wein, Elizabeth: A THOUSAND SISTERS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2018. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A561923132/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bf232134. Accessed 26 June 2024.
WEIN, Elizabeth. A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II. 384p. HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray. Jan. 2019. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9780062453013.
Gr 9 Up--From Wein, author of Code Name Verity, comes a nonfiction account of the women pilots of the Soviet Union. Starting prior to World War II, Wein describes how aviation became a hobby and passion for many young women in the Soviet Union. When World War II started, life under the Soviet system meant women could serve as pilots, theoretically equal to men, in the war effort. Wein provides a meticulously detailed account of Marina Raskova's Aviation Regiments: the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment, and the 588th Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. These three were largely staffed with women volunteers and fought on the frontlines of the war. The author provides an intimate look at the pilots' lives, both personal and military, as they work to defeat the Nazis. Likewise, Wein does not shy away from describing the difficult and often terrifying aspects of living under Stalin, including descriptions of man-made famines and the Great Purge. Some readers may have difficulty keeping track of all of the figures, but Raskova often acts as an anchor to assist readers in following the numerous and complex accounts. VERDICT Recommend this richly detailed work of nonfiction to fans of Monica Hesse and Wein's historical fiction.--Kaetlyn Phillips, Yorkton, Sask.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Phillips, Kaetlyn. "WEIN, Elizabeth. A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II." School Library Journal, vol. 64, no. 12, Dec. 2018, p. 92. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A563769431/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=106805d0. Accessed 26 June 2024.
WEIN, Elizabeth. The Enigma Game. 432p. Little, Brown. May 2020. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9781368012584.
Gr 7 Up--In the same vein as Wein's Code Name Verity, this World War II novel is an exhilarating and atmospheric read. Set in 1940 in a small Scottish village on the North Sea that is home to a Royal Air Force base, the narrative features alternating voices, daring action in the air, and high-stakes intrigue on the ground as a variety of young people work to undermine and bring down the daunting German war machine. Fifteen-year-old Jamaican British Louisa Adair has lost both of her parents in the shelling, and must find a way to support herself while doing her bit to defeat the Nazis. Despite her losses and dislocation, Louisa keeps her flute by her side and her mother's love of music in her heart. She lands a job in Windyedge caring for an elderly retired opera singer whose niece runs a pub near the air base. Louisa and the fascinating old woman, who is German by birth and living under a pseudonym, turn out to be kindred spirits, and eventually co-conspirators. Another teen, Ellen McEwen, hails from a family of Travellers and hides her background as she works as a volunteer driver at the base and takes on increasing responsibilities. Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, of Code Name Verity fame, appears as a 19-year-old flight leader for the 648 Squadron, flying slow and clunky Bristol Blenheim aircrafts, and is driven to desperation to keep his pilots safe and stand up to the mighty Messerschmitts. The young people's lives and stories converge when a German pilot lands in Windyedge and leaves behind a mysterious box--an Enigma machine--and, more importantly, a key to how it works to translate German code. A lengthy "Author's Declaration of Accountability" outlines Wein's research and representation, and provides further reading and numerous interesting links. VERDICT Just the ticket for lovers of historical thrillers and Wein's many fans.--Luann Toth, formerly at School Library Journal
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Toth, Luann. "WEIN, Elizabeth. The Enigma Game." School Library Journal, vol. 66, no. 3, Mar. 2020, pp. 113+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A616314268/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=16172af4. Accessed 26 June 2024.
The Enigma Game
Elizabeth Wein. Little, Brown, $18.99 (432p)
ISBN 978-1-368-01258-4
Set in 1940, between the events of The Pearl Thief and Code Name Verity, Wein's latest immersive dive into a slice of WWII-era history splits the narration among three figures--Fit. Lt. Jamie Beaufort-Stuart; Ellen McEwen, a Traveller volunteering as a military driver; and Louisa Adair, the biracial daughter of a Jamaican father and a British mother, both recently killed by German explosives. Suddenly an orphan at 15, Louisa intersects with the others when she is hired by phone to escort an elderly German opera singer to a relative's inn, located in the Scottish countryside near the air force base where Jamie and Ellen are stationed. Intrigue is added when the civilians arrive at the same moment as a German pilot who secretly deposits a code-breaking machine at the inn--the only Enigma machine in Allied hands. Louisa, who dearly wishes she could help the war effort as a pilot, now has the means to contribute, but she needs assistance. Wein again seamlessly weaves extensive research into a thriller populated by fully dimensional characters. Late in the novel, Jamie's sister, Julie, makes a cameo as a newly minted intelligence officer, a poignant reminder to readers of Cock Name Verity that the war will get much worse before it ends. Ages 12-up. Agent: Ginger Clark, Curtis Brown. (May)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 PWxyz, LLC
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"The Enigma Game." Publishers Weekly, vol. 267, no. 14, 6 Apr. 2020, p. 79. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A622071319/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=788296a1. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Wein, Elizabeth THE ENIGMA GAME Disney-Hyperion/LBYR (Teen Fiction) $18.99 5, 26 ISBN: 978-1-368-01258-4
Wein returns with another emotional flight through World War II, this time in Scotland.
Three young people’s lives intersect in a remote Scottish village, their bond cemented by the unexpected receipt of the first Enigma machine to reach Allied hands. Characters who appear here from earlier volumes include: volunteer Ellen McEwen, respected by others who don’t know she’s a Traveller; flight leader Jamie Beaufort-Stuart, alive but with a flight log of dead friends; and 15-year-old biracial Jamaican English orphan Louisa Adair, employed (by phone, without disclosing her skin color) to care for an elderly but fierce German woman. All of them are bound by a sense of helplessness and a desire to make a difference; Wein shines at exploring the tension between the horrors of war and its unexpected pleasures, many thanks to friendships that could only exist during a time of upheaval. In many ways a small story about big things—fitting in a novel thematically focused on the ways individuals matter—this is historical fiction at its finest, casting a light on history (with some minor liberties, noted in the extensive backmatter) as well as raising questions still relevant today, particularly around class and race, nationality and belonging; unexpected connections across those gulfs lead to moments of love and heartbreak for readers and characters alike.
Another soaring success. (author’s note, resources) (Historical fiction. 12-18)
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"Wein, Elizabeth: THE ENIGMA GAME." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2020. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A616094008/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1d818a83. Accessed 26 June 2024.
WEIN, Elizabeth. Stateless. 400p. Little, Brown. Mar. 2023. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9780316591249.
Gr 6 Up--Wein's latest historical fiction entry displays a wonderful understanding of both the complexity of the interwar years in Europe and the complicated motivations of the human condition. Stella is a young pilot selected to represent Britain in Europe's first air race for young people, an effort to promote peace amid lingering resentments, the ongoing Spanish Civil War, and the rise of Nazism. She is the lone female pilot and must continually prove her skill as an aviator and her ability to navigate treacherous social situations under the ever-present newspaper camera lens. Set in August 1937, when most Europeans liked to believe that peace between nations was still possible, hopes for a friendly air race to inspire national camaraderie are shattered on the first day when Stella observes one pilot force another to crash into the English Channel. Wein skillfully intertwines the mystery surrounding the crash and the increasingly suspicious behavior of various race participants and officials with the escalating tensions induced by episodes of sabotage and unsportsmanlike actions, both in the air and on the ground. Wein's prose shines especially bright during her descriptions of the landscape from the air, particularly the lasting effects of trench warfare on the terrain of Europe and the dread of another war. Her thorough research and attention to detail make the era come alive for readers. Back matter includes an extensive author's note and brief bibliography of works that inspired this novel. VERDICT Fans of Wein's earlier works, Keith O'Brien's Fly Girls, and Steve Sheinkin's Bom to Fly will greatly enjoy this novel. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Susan Catlett
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Catlett, Susan. "WEIN, Elizabeth. Stateless." School Library Journal, vol. 69, no. 3, Mar. 2023, pp. 90+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A739108677/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8fbdf804. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Stateless
Elizabeth Wein. Little, Brown, $18.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-31659-124-9
This suspenseful murder mystety by Wein (The Enigma Game), set in 1937, centers a group of stellar young pilots competing in a European air race. Striving to promote peace during a period of international unrest, pioneering British female aviator Lady Firth organizes Europe's First Youth Air Race, comprising 12 pilots aged 17-20 from 12 nations, flying over seven cities. Seventeen-year-old Stella North, Britain's representative and the only female participant, hides her Russian origins, fearing exposure by the press as a stateless refugee. When one pilot disappears before the first leg of the race is completed, Stella believes she witnessed his murder in the sky. Each contestant--and their respective chaperone--is a possible suspect, and Stella, externally cool and collected, privately worries about potential sabotage to her plane. She also wrestles with misgivings about her competitors, each of whom represents a different facet of the imminent war. Danger and intrigue abound in this historically accurate aeronautic adventure, which boasts a large cast whose unusual and dramatically shifting dynamics make for a savory read. Major characters cue as white; one chaperone is a highly regarded Black aviator. A concluding author's note details context regarding pre-WWII and aviation history, plus extensive source notes. Ages 12-up. Agent: Ginger Clark. Ginger Clark Literary. (Mar.)
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"Stateless." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 3, 16 Jan. 2023, p. 78. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A735452370/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=12cc52fb. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Wein, Elizabeth STATELESS Little, Brown (Teen None) $18.99 3, 14 ISBN: 978-0-316-59124-9
Intrigue and danger in the air and on the ground make for an exciting read that is steeped in interwar history.
In late August 1937, Stella North, 17, is representing Britain by flying in a race against other young pilots to promote peace in Europe. As the only female flyer, and one who does not feel like a true Brit (she's originally from Russia, having left as a 3-year-old refugee, but she keeps that fact hidden), she has a lot to prove. Racing from England to Belgium, Stella witnesses two planes nearly collide midair, with one flying away undamaged and one plummeting into the sea. Was it really murder? The competitors include a pilot representing Nazi Germany, an Italian who is a close friend of Mussolini's son, a Jewish pilot from the Netherlands, and an anti-fascist pilot from France: Could one of them be trying to eliminate the competition? Unlikely alliances form as Stella and her fellow pilots try to solve the mystery and stay alive, all unfolding against the backdrop of an ever more frightening political landscape. The aeronautic and historical details woven into the story make for informative and fascinating reading. The ending will feel bittersweet, as readers know that many of these new allies will shortly be on different sides of a horrific war.
A thrilling, terrifying read. (map, competitors and destinations, author's note, sources) (Historical mystery. 12-18)
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"Wein, Elizabeth: STATELESS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A731562080/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=024753fe. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Smith, Sherri L. AMERICAN WINGS Putnam (Teen None) $19.99 1, 16 ISBN: 9780593323984
An account of how brilliant and resourceful early-20th-century Black aviators created their own runway to the skies.
Originally trained as auto mechanics, Cornelius Robinson Coffey and John Charles Robinson shared a common dream of becoming pilots despite facing racism. "We're going to make it regardless," Coffey prophetically declared after they were both reluctantly admitted--under threat of a lawsuit--into Chicago's Curtiss-Wright School of Aviation. They successfully finished their program, persuading the school's initially hostile director to register a cohort of Black students whom they could teach as assistant instructors. Coffey and Robinson then sought interested men and women through advertisements in the Chicago Defender, whose publisher sponsored pioneering Black pilot Bessie Coleman. They organized the Brown Eagle Aero Club, and Robinson even accepted an invitation from Haile Selassie to help train Ethiopian pilots as the country prepared to defend itself against fascist Italy. Smith and Wein tightly thread together overlapping narrative threads, including the early evolution of aviation, the history of Tuskegee University, the role of the African American press, and tense geopolitical matters concerning the only African country to have escaped European colonization. Photographs scattered throughout are an additional treat, adding a special layer to the storytelling. The writing is accessible and buoyant, creating anticipation for what is to come, all culminating in an engaging slice of history.
A fascinating, well-told American story full of compelling innovation. (authors' note, source notes, resources, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)
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"Smith, Sherri L.: AMERICAN WINGS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Nov. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A770738760/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=34d0f549. Accessed 26 June 2024.
American Wings: Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for
Equality in the Sky.
By Sherri L. Smith and Elizabeth Wein.
Jan. 2024. 384p. illus. Putnam, $19.99 (9780593323984).
Gr. 8-12.629.13092.
Readers intrigued by the history of Black aviation in the U.S. during the first half of the twentieth century will find a wealth of information in this book, which features several pivotal figures during the period, particularly those in the Chicago area, where Black men and women worked as mechanics, students learning to fly, and classroom or airborne flight instructors. Some became forward-thinking leaders in their field. Each of the authors has an interest in aviation history and has written nonfiction books as well as historical novels set during the period, including Smiths Flygirl (2008) and Wein's Code Name Verity (2012). Their extensive research is evident throughout the book, which is illustrated with photos and full of details that contribute to the portrayal of these individuals as their stories emerge. The notable aviators include Cornelius Coffey, Willa Brown, Johnny Robinson, and Janet Harmon Bragg. Based on well-documented research and credited in the extensive, appended source notes, the book offers a enlightening account of notable Black American aviators and the issues that they confronted during their careers.--Carolyn Phelan
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
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Source Citation
Source Citation
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Phelan, Carolyn. "American Wings: Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 7-8, 1 Dec. 2023, p. 117. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777512538/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5aa14325. Accessed 26 June 2024.
SMITH, Sherri L. & Elizabeth Wein. American Wings: Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky. 384p. Putnam. Jan. 2024. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9780593323984.
Gr 7 Up--By following the lives of skilled auto mechanics Cornelius Coffey and Johnny Robinson, nurse Janet Harmon Bragg, and teacher and social worker Willa Brown, the authors have created a wonderfully detailed and evocative review of the true story of four Black Americans between the world wars who pioneered aviation in spite of many obstacles placed in their paths. Inspired by the achievements and legacy of Bessie Coleman that were celebrated in a 1928 Memorial Day tribute, Coffey and Robinson began a collaboration that grew to include Bragg and Brown. Their journeys culminated in avionics school and airport ownership, partnership with the Tuskegee Institute, and international acclaim. This title showcases how determination and ingenuity triumphed over segregation in Chicago during the nascent period of the aviation industry. The extensive investigation of primary and secondary documents, including contemporary newspapers and photographs, has allowed Smith and Wein, both authors of YA novels about young people becoming pilots, to give a vivid and accurate recounting of the struggles and triumphs of the desegregation of Chicago aviation. The lengthy end notes, bibliography, and substantial authors' note underscore the level of research completed. VERDICT Fans of the authors' previous books will appreciate this nonfiction title, as will fans of aviation history. Recommended for all collections.--Susan Catlett
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Catlett, Susan. "SMITH, Sherri L. & Elizabeth Wein. American Wings: Chicago's Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky." School Library Journal, vol. 70, no. 2, Feb. 2024, p. 108. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A784714440/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=e7d930af. Accessed 26 June 2024.