SATA

• War Games - 2025 Scholastic Press, New York, NY
• Resist: A Story of D-Day - 2025 Scholastic Press, New York, NY
• Refugee: the Graphic Novel (by Alan Gratz ; art by Syd Fini ; color by Neda Kazemifar) - 2025 Graphix, New York, NY
• Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor / Alan Gratz. By: Gratz, Alan, 1972- Published: - 2024 Scholastic Press, New York, NY

• Alan Gratz website - https://www.alangratz.com/

  About Me
  image_about_loraxLooking for a short bio? Use this!

  Alan Gratz is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels, graphic novels, and novellas for young readers, including War Games, Heroes, Two Degrees, Captain America: The Ghost Army, Ground Zero, Refugee, Allies, Resist, Prisoner B-3087, and Ban This Book. A Knoxville, Tennessee native, Alan is now a full-time writer living in Portland, Oregon with his family. Learn more about him online at www.alangratz.com.

  Want to know more about Alan? Read on…

  Alan Gratz is the bestselling author of more than twenty novels, graphic novels, and novellas for young readers. His 2017 novel Refugee has spent more than five years on the New York Times bestseller list, and is the winner of 14 state awards. Its other accolades include the Sydney Taylor Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction Award, a Charlotte Huck Award Honor, and a Malka Penn Award for Human Rights Honor. Refugee was also a Global Read Aloud Book for 2018.

  Alan’s 2025 novel War Games, 2024 novel Heroes, 2022 novel Two Degrees, and his 2021 novel Ground Zero were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and were also ABA Indie, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestsellers. His 2019 novel Allies debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list and received four starred reviews, and 2018’s Grenade debuted at #3. His other books include Prisoner B-3087, which was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Readers pick and winner of eight state awards; Projekt 1065, a Kirkus Best Middle Grade Book of 2016 and winner of five state awards; Code of Honor, a YALSA Quick Pick for Young Readers; and Ban This Book, which was featured by Whoopi Goldberg on The View.

  Alan has traveled extensively to talk about his books, appearing at schools and book festivals in 39 states and a half-dozen countries, including Brazil, Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, and Switzerland, and has been a Writer in Residence at Tokyo’s American School in Japan, the James Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio, and the Jakarta Intercultural School in Indonesia.

  Alan was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, home of the 1982 World’s Fair. After a carefree but humid childhood, Alan attended the University of Tennessee, where he earned a College Scholars degree with a specialization in creative writing, and, later, a Master’s degree in English education. A member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame, Alan now lives with his family in Portland, Oregon, where he enjoys playing games, eating pizza, and, perhaps not too surprisingly, reading books.

  Frequently Asked Questions
  Alan gets a lot of e-mails and letters from fans asking him questions about his books and his life. Below are some of the most frequently asked questions, and his answers. Questions are broken down into categories: personal, the books, and writing advice.

  Personal
  Where were you born?
  Knoxville, Tennessee.

  Where did you grow up and go to school?
  I went to middle school and high school at Webb School in Knoxville, then went to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for both undergraduate and graduate school.

  How old are you?
  I was born in 1972. You can do the math.

  Where do you live?
  In a little city called Asheville in Western North Carolina.

  Do you ever do tours or author visits?
  I often do author tours when a new book comes out. You can find out where I’ll be and when by subscribing to my e-newsletter here.

  Are you married? Do you have any kids?
  Yes, and yes. My wife’s name is Wendi, and my daughter’s name is Jo.

  Do you have a day job?
  Yes. It’s writing. This is my full-time job! (Pretty awesome, huh?) And despite what my dad thinks, I really am in my office researching, outlining, writing, or taking care of writing business stuff all day. 🙂

  If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?
  I was an eighth grade English teacher before I was a full-time writer, so I suspect that’s what I would be doing. My dream job, outside of writing novels? Game show host. I also wish I could draw comics.

  Do you have any hobbies?
  Sure. I love playing board games and video games and role-playing games. I also like building things, like chicken coops and woodsheds and catapults. I collect action figures and other toys. Oh, and I read a lot, of course. Books, magazines, and comic books.

  What is your favorite food?
  To say that my favorite food is pizza is like saying that my favorite thing to breathe is air. Let’s just leave it at that.

  What’s your favorite baseball team?
  Major League Team: Los Angeles Dodgers
  Japanese Pro Team: Hiroshima Carp
  Minor League Team: Asheville Tourists

  Who’s your favorite baseball player?
  Sean Casey, aka “The Mayor.” He played for a lot of teams, including the Cincinnati Reds, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Boston Red Sox. He’s retired now, and works as a commentator for MLB Network.

  Who were your favorite authors/what were your favorite books as a kid?
  To tell the truth, I didn’t read a lot of books when I was a kid. I was more likely to be out building a fort in the woods or inventing a fake country or playing video games. I read books, yes, but I didn’t always have my nose buried in a book all the time the way some people do. I read a lot of classics, and loved books like Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I also really liked The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, and mysteries like The Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown. I do wish I’d read more as a kid though, if only so I wouldn’t feel so very behind with all the great books I want to read now!

  The Books
  Samurai Shortstop

  Where did you get the idea for Samurai Shortstop?
  I’ve always wanted to visit Japan, and I was thumbing through a travel guide when I saw a picture of a Japanese man in a kimono throwing out the first pitch at a baseball tournament in 1915. 1915! I had no idea Japan was playing baseball that long ago, so I found a book about Japanese baseball. And another. And another. A dozen or so books later, and I had a story about a boy blending bushido with baseball and . . . well, go read the book!

  Why is that opening chapter of Samurai Shortstop so graphic?
  I had two reasons for beginning Samurai Shortstop with a depiction of Toyo’s uncle killing himself. First, I wanted to grab the reader’s attention with something startling. But second, and most importantly, I wanted to scare Toyo, and, by extension, the reader. After his uncle commits suicide, Toyo’s father says he’s going to do it next, and Toyo spends the rest of the novel trying to stop his dad from following in his uncle’s footsteps. The first chapter is the motivation for everything else Toyo does in the book. So that first chapter has to be graphic and scary, otherwise we as readers wouldn’t understand what the big deal is.

  Is Samurai Shortstop saying it’s okay to commit suicide?
  No. That’s what Toyo is fighting against the whole time. But ritual suicide among the samurai was a real thing, and there’s no reason to pretend things didn’t happen in the past just because we wouldn’t do the same thing today. Toyo comes to understand his uncle’s decision, but that doesn’t mean he agrees with it. That’s an important difference. The same could be said of modern Japan: they understand why their ancestors did what they did, but they no longer agree with it. Even by Toyo’s time, ritual suicide in Japan was seen as scandalous and sensational.

  Is Ichiko a real school? Are the storms and the Clenched Fist real?
  You know those author notes you skipped at the end of Samurai Shortstop? Read them. Then go here.

  Something Rotten and Something Wicked

  Where did you get the idea for the Horatio Wilkes mysteries?
  I like telling people that Horatio is as old on paper — in my notes — as he is in Something Rotten. That is, he’s seventeen years old in Rotten, and I’d been writing about Horatio Wilkes since I took a Mystery and Detective Fiction class in college seventeen years before he ever made it to print. We had to create our own detectives for that class, and that’s when Horatio was born. He didn’t start out as a teenager though — at first, he was a thirty-something forensic scientist who taught at a university. I never was interested in doing research into forensics though, so Horatio went through a lot of changes over the years. I always liked his character, but never found the right story for him until I started writing young adult novels, and had the inspiration to make him seventeen. It was a perfect fit. All I needed then was a story for him. I had borrowed his name from Hamlet because I liked how down-to-earth and practical Hamlet’s friend Horatio was, and I figured if the character was good enough to steal, so was the story. 🙂 I had always loved Hamlet and was looking for a way to turn it into a contemporary murder mystery, and everything came together. After that, I chose Macbeth as the inspiration for a second Horatio mystery because I’ve always loved its villains — Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

  Are there going to be any more Horatio novels?
  Alas, I don’t think so! I had planned to at least do a third book in the series, one called Something Foolish, which loosely followed the plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream — but the series never sold well enough to write it. I have ideas for lots more Horatio books — including a Julius Caesar take-off that has Horatio solving a murder at a fraternity toga party during a college visit, and a version of The Tempest in which Horatio spends a summer as an intern at a Disney World-like amusement park — but I think something crazy like Horatio getting made into a TV show would have to happen before a publisher would pay me to write those. 🙁

  The Brooklyn Nine

  Where did you get the idea for The Brooklyn Nine?
  My terrific editor wrote to me one day and asked me what I would do with a story about baseball and different generations of a family, and I came back to her with the idea of nine innings — nine generations — of one American family and their connections to baseball throughout the decades. I had particular eras I wanted to hit — like the women’s leagues during World War II and the “Gentleman’s Agreement” to keep black players out of professional baseball around the turn of the century — but otherwise I left the stories up to the research. I was always able to find some story I wanted to tell for each generation — often more than one story — and I enjoyed reading up on American and baseball history along the way.

  How much of The Brooklyn Nine is real?
  You know those author notes you skipped at the end of The Brooklyn Nine? Read them. Then go here.

  Fantasy Baseball

  Where did you get the idea for Fantasy Baseball?
  When my daughter was very little, she wanted to wear baseball jerseys like the ones I was wearing. But she didn’t really like baseball, and didn’t have a favorite baseball team. My wife is great at sewing, and said she could make my daughter a baseball jersey. But what should she put on it? As a joke, I suggested we pretend there were baseball teams in famous kids books, like the Neverland Lost Boys from Peter Pan, or the Oz Cyclones from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Wendi made a couple for Jo, and they were a hit. I said, “You know, somebody ought to write a book where all these teams from kids books are real and are playing in a huge fantasy baseball tournament!” And then I realized I write kids books, and so I wrote it.

  Prisoner B-3087

  Why did you choose to write about Jack?
  Jack and his wife Ruth took his story to Scholastic, and they immediately saw that it would make a great book. But neither Jack nor Ruth are writers, so Scholastic asked me to write the book. Once I heard Jack’s account of his time in the camps, I couldn’t resist—it was such an incredible story! In particular, I liked that he survived. So many stories of the Holocaust of course did not end so well.

  Did you ever get to meet Jack?
  I worked on the book for a while before I ever met Jack in person, using what he and his wife had told Scholastic about his experiences in World War II and doing a lot of research on the concentration camps on my own. Then, about halfway through writing the first draft, I got to fly to New York and meet Jack. We spent the afternoon at the Holocaust Museum in Manhattan, where some artifacts of Ruth’s time during the war are on display. I’m pleased that I was able to write something that brought the past to life again for him, even if a great deal of that past was painful. Jack is one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.

  It says Prisoner B-3087 is a novel. How much of it really happened?
  You know that author’s note at the end you skipped? Go read it. Beyond that, I can tell you that almost everything that happens to Jack in the book is real. Sometimes I had to fill in the blanks in Jack’s memory, which is why it’s a novel, not a non-fiction memoir. But yes, all the big stuff really happened to him. All the camps are real. Some of them were in Poland, some of them were in the Czech Republic, and others were in Germany itself. And yes, the kapos and Nazis were the ones he really dealt with. You can look the place and people up online to learn more about them.

  The League of Seven series

  Where did you get the idea for The League of Seven?
  One night I was sitting around talking with my wife and I told her that for my next book, I wanted to write a book that was full of awesome. I said, “I want to write a book that is so full of awesome that when I was in school and I went into the library and saw this book sitting on the shelf, I could not help but check it out. It would be so full of awesome that my head would explode from its awesomeness.” My wife said, “That sounds great? What’s it about?” And I said, “I have no idea.” So I went into my office the next day and cleared off a big board I have where I outline all my books, and I took a stack of notecards and a pen and I started writing down ideas to pin up there. Right in the middle, the first card I wrote said, “FULL OF AWESOME,” just to remind me that everything that went up on that board had to be full of awesome. I wrote down stuff like airships, rayguns, secret societies, Native Americans, giant monsters, mad scientists, clockwork machine men, and brains in jars. When I was done, I had a big board full of awesome stuff, but what I did not have was a book. So then I sat back for the next couple of weeks and stared at that board, trying to find the connections between all those awesome things. And eventually I came up with the characters, setting, and plot that became the League of Seven trilogy!

  Code of Honor

  Where did you get the idea for Code of Honor?
  The idea for Code of Honor came from trying to write a contemporary thriller with a seventeen-year-old hero. Could I write a book with lots of action and adventure and intrigue and still have a kid solve the problem? Because why isn’t an adult taking care of a terrorist threat? So I came up with the idea of the codes, so Kamran can’t help but be involved. He’s the only person on the face of the planet who can figure out his brother’s clues!

  Where did you get the idea for the clues and codes?
  I used to make up stories for my little brother at bed time, and act them out with our action figures. We would go out in the back yard and have adventures pretending to be our favorite characters from movies we liked too. Kamran and Darius do the same thing, only they add in the adventures of Rostam, because those are the stories their mother told them at bed time.

  Is Code of Honor based on a true story or real people?
  No. I made it all up!

  Are you going to write a sequel to Code of Honor?
  I don’t have any plans to right now, no. But never say never! If I do, I’d love to tell a story about Kamran solving a mystery at West Point Military Academy…

  Projekt 1065

  Where did you get the idea for Projekt 1065?
  One of the chapters I ended up cutting from Prisoner B-3087 was a scene where Jack runs into a kid in the Hitler Youth. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to write a whole book about the Hitler Youth, but I didn’t want to have a Nazi as my main character. Then I learned that Ireland had been neutral in World War II, and so they had diplomats and ambassadors in Nazi Germany–diplomats and ambassadors who were really working as spies! Then I realized I could have an Irish kid as my main character, but because he was thirteen years old, he would have to be in the Hitler Youth, and would be my hero.

  Were Michael or any of the other characters real people?
  Nope. All the history is real–about the Hitler Youth, and the Edelweiss Pirates, and Operation Paperclip, and Projekt 1065, and Irish diplomats being spies…but I made up Michael and Simon and Michael’s parents and the rest of the characters.

  Why is Projekt 1065 spelled with a “K”?
  It’s a typo! Just kidding. (I think we would have noticed that one, since it’s on the cover!) “Projekt” is the German spelling of the word “project,” and Projekt 1065 was the real code name for the world’s first jet plane–the Messerschmidt 262Me. So I spelled it the German way. (Also because it looks really cool with a K in it!)

  Refugee

  Where did you get the idea for Refugee?
  Refugee started for me with the story of the MS St. Louis. It was a real ship, and it was famous back in the 1940s, and has been ever since. There have been books about it, and movies, even an opera! But there wasn’t a book about the MS St. Louis for young readers. So I decided to write one!

  I was in the middle of figuring out who my main character would be and what the story would be when my family and I went on a vacation to the Florida Keys. One morning we got up to walk on the beach, and we found a raft refugees had taken to come to the United States. No one was on board, and I still don’t know where it came from, but my best guess is that it came from Cuba. It made me think–why was I writing a book about Jewish refugees seventy-five years ago, when there were refugees right here, right now, I could be writing about?

  And of course at the same time, I was seeing images on the news and on the Internet about the Syrian Civil War, and the millions of Syrian refugees looking for some place of safety. I couldn’t decide–which book should I write? They are all important stories! And then I realized–why do I have to write three books? What if I just wrote one book, and combined all three stories? And that’s how Refugee was born.

  Are any of the three main characters in Refugee real people?
  No. But every single thing that happens to them really happened to a refugee at some point. So each of my main characters and their families represent many different refugee stories, all of which were real.

  How can I help refugees?
  You can help refugee families by donating money to one of the many groups who help refugees through every phase of their three lives. Some nonprofit organizations have very specific missions, like rescuing people fleeing the Middle East by boat or battling disease in refugee camps. Two of my favorite organizations work specifically with refugee children around the world. The first is UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, which is working to keep Syrian children from becoming a “lost generation” by providing life-saving medical services, food, water, sanitation, and education both within Syria and wherever Syrian refugees have fled. The second is Save the Children, which works with a number of corporate partners and individual donors here in the United States to offer emergency relief to children whenever and wherever it’s needed around the world, including a special campaign for Syrian children.

  Both UNICEF and Save the Children spend 90 percent of every dollar they raise on services and resources that directly help children. Donations to either of these terrific organizations can be earmarked for specific regions and conflicts, or be used to help refugee children worldwide. Learn more at www.unicefusa.org and www.savethechildren.org.

  Ban This Book

  Have you ever had one of your books banned or challenged?
  Not that I know of. But the American Library Association estimates that 85-97% of all book challenges and bans in the United States go unreported. In 2016, more than 300 books were challenged or banned–which means that thousands more happened without anyone ever hearing about them. So it’s quite likely that one of my books has been challenged or banned, and I just don’t know!

  Were all the books in Ban This Book really challenged or banned?
  Yes! Every one of the books Mrs. Spencer and her friends remove from the library shelves at Amy Anne’s school is a book that has been challenged or banned somewhere in the United States within the last thirty years.

  General Questions About My Books

  What’s your favorite book you’ve written?
  The League of Seven! It’s the kind of book I would have loved when I was in middle school. (And still do!)

  Has anything or anyone in your life ever inspired something in your books?
  Yes. When I was sixteen years old, I watched my favorite uncle commit ritual suicide. I’m kidding! I’m only kidding! The real answer is: not much. The pollution angle in Something Rotten is loosely based on the Champion Paper controversy that was all over the front pages of the Knoxville newspapers when I was younger, and the setting for Something Wicked is based on my trip to a Scottish Highland Festival, but none of the characters in my books are based on people I’ve known. Oh, and Horatio’s car is my best friend’s old hand-me-down car.

  I did write one novel that uses a lot of my own experiences from high school in it, but that novel hasn’t sold and I haven’t returned to it in some time. If I ever did sell it, I think a lot of people I once knew would recognize themselves in it, and they’d probably sue me for defamation of character.

  Are you like any of your characters?
  I share a love for baseball with most of my characters (even Horatio). I also share a lot of the emotions and frustrations of my characters at times, but I’m not Toyo, or Horatio, or Jack, or Kamran, or any of the characters in The Brooklyn Nine or The League of Seven. Horatio and I do share something of the same fashion sense, and I suppose there’s a little part of me in all of my characters, but none of them is all me, or vice versa. And there are characters in Refugee who share some of my characteristics–like Josef, all I wanted when I was a kid was to be a grown up, and like Mahmoud’s father, when things go bad I like to joke around. But none of my characters is ever completely me. When I write, I try to create characters who have lives of their own.

  You write a lot about baseball. Are you a big baseball fan? Did you ever play baseball?
  You can’t write baseball books and not love baseball. (Well, I guess you could, but why?) So yeah, I’m a fan. But I’ve always been a greater fan than player. My greatest Little League moment: I misplayed a long drive to left field, then absolutely launched the ball, trying to throw a runner out at the plate. The ball sailed over the pitcher’s mound, over first base, over the fence, and into the bleachers, where it hit my little brother in the arm. All the runners scored. After the inning was over, the coach told me I had a good arm. He also told me not to come back.

  Did you create the cover images for your books? Do you have any say about them?
  I wish I was that talented. No, I didn’t create the covers to any of my books, and no, I don’t really have much say (if any) about what they look like. But covers are terribly important. People say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but we all do, don’t we? Here’s how it works: when the writing is finished, my editor sends a description of my book and some thoughts about what kind of tone or look she wants the cover to have to the designer who’s gotten the assignment, and then she works back and forth with the artist and the art editor to create something they hope will say what the book is about, stand out on a bookshelf, and sell copies. I’ve been very lucky to have gotten terrific covers for each of my books — a testament to the talents of my publishers’ art departments!

  If you didn’t write your books, would you want to read them?
  I get this question a lot, and it always surprises me. Maybe it’s because I write books meant for young readers and I’m not “young” anymore? I guess what some people don’t realize is that a lot of adults — including me — still read young adult novels. So yeah, I’d read my own books even if I wasn’t the author. I can’t imagine writing a book I wouldn’t read! I write about only those stories and characters I’m interested in. If I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t write about them — especially since it takes such a long time and such a lot of work to write a book. If I didn’t like what I was writing, it would be awful — and the books probably would be too!

  What are you working on now?
  A bowl of popcorn. But seriously, if you want to know about my latest books, the best place to stay up to date is my monthly e-mail newsletter! You can sign up for that here.

  Writing
  Did you always want to be a writer? When did you decide to be a writer?
  My original dream was to be a Jedi master. Unable to master the Force, I quickly turned to writing. When I was in grade school I produced a newspaper called the Blue Spring Lane News for my street, and by fifth grade I had written my first book. It was called Real Kids Don’t Eat Spinach, and it was a play on a popular humor book at the time called Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. I kept writing stories and newspaper articles all through middle school and high school, and studied writing in college. I guess I should have seen this coming.

  Where do you get your ideas?
  All over the place. In line at the grocery store, reading a magazine, surfing the internet. There are stories everywhere if you’re looking for them. My favorite writing teacher showed me the trick of keeping an idea book, a journal where I can scribble a good piece of dialogue, an idea for a character, a random quote — anything. I’ve filled five and a half books in fifteen years. Not everything in my idea books will turn into a novel, but they’re great places to experiment and have fun without the pressure of turning them into a real story.

  How do I become a writer?
  Well, you sit down at your computer and start writing. If you want to write well, I suggest you a) spy on your friends and family and listen to the way people talk, b) keep your eyes open and watch everything that happens in the world around you, c) always start in the middle of the action, d) make sure your story has a beginning, middle, and an end, e) read a lot and imitate your favorite authors. Note I didn’t say copy what they write — just how they write. And did I mention you actually have to sit down at your computer or your notebook and start writing?

  When and where do you do your writing?
  I write on a computer. I love writing by hand, but it just takes too much time. I find that my thoughts get ahead of my ability to scribble, and then I lose whatever it was I was thinking about. Typing on the computer is so much faster, and allows me to cut and paste and rework with the words right in front of me. As to where I write, my family and I live in a house we designed and built (a lot of) ourselves, and I have a small office with a nice view of the woods. When I’m working on a new book, I research, outline or write from around 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every week day.

  How long does it take you to write a book?
  The research on historical novels actually takes longer than the writing. The idea for Samurai Shortstop had been percolating for a month or two when I thought of the title and a rough story idea. Then I hit the library, and for the next few months I only did research. When I felt like I could construct a chapter outline of my story, I stopped reading and started building the story. The outline probably took me a month to refine (it was very detailed!), and then I began writing. Once I begin writing, especially when I have a detailed outline that tells me where the story is going, I can write a chapter a day, sometimes two if I’m really cruising. At that rate, I can have a first draft in about a month — but then begins the long editing phase. I rewrite things that are choppy or don’t work, bounce the story off trusted early readers, and then go through another round or three of corrections. From idea to final draft, it probably took me about nine months to write Samurai Shortstop. After it sold, I spent another year doing more research and going through even more rounds of revision with my editor. A year to a year and a half is about my average for most books now.

  What do you do about writers block?
  I used to suffer from writers block all the time — I’d be sitting at my computer, ready to write, and have no idea what I was going to write. The clock would tick away, and with it would go the time I had to write that day. Then I’d come out of my office mad that I hadn’t gotten words on the page. Then I learned to outline, and that’s made all the difference. I now outline every novel I write, chapter by chapter, before I ever write the first word. If I hear a scene in my head, I scribble it down — when the muse speaks, you listen and take notes! — but I never try to push past the inspiration in the outline phase.

  Once I know in detail what is going to happen, I sit down to the keyboard and try to figure out how to tell it. Those are two very different processes, but most writers try to tackle them both at the same time. Separating them was a real breakthrough for me. I still get writers block (of a kind) when I can’t figure out what’s supposed to happen next during the outline phase, but at least then I don’t come out of my office thinking that I’ve wasted time by not getting words and paragraphs and chapters written. Once I have the outline finished, I never get writers block — which is important when you’re in a mood to knock out first draft pages. I look at my outline in the morning, read what’s going to happen, and then start writing it.

  Do you belong to a critique group?
  I have a critique group of one–my wife, Wendi. She reads everything I write, and gives me good, honest feedback on it. Sometimes too honest, and I don’t want to talk to her for a few days, but then I get over it. Usually.

• From Publisher -

  Alan Gratz

  ALAN GRATZ is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several highly acclaimed books for young readers, including Two Degrees, Ground Zero, Allies, Grenade,Refugee, Projekt 1065, Prisoner B-3087, Code of Honor, and Captain America: The Ghost Army, an original graphic novel. Alan lives in North Carolina with his wife and daughter. Look for him online at alangratz.com.

• Fantastic Fiction -

  Alan Gratz
  USA flag

  Alan Gratz was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, home of the 1982 World’s Fair. After a carefree but humid childhood, Alan attended the University of Tennessee, where he earned a College Scholars degree with a specialization in creative writing, and, later, a Master’s degree in English education. He now lives with his wife Wendi and his daughter Jo in the high country of Western North Carolina, where he enjoys playing games, eating pizza, and, perhaps not too surprisingly, reading books.

  Genres: Children's Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy

  New and upcoming books
  October 2025

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  War Games

  Series
  Horatio Wilkes Mystery
  1. Something Rotten (2007)
  2. Something Wicked (2008)
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  League of Seven
  1. The League of Seven (2014)
  2. The Dragon Lantern (2015)
  3. The Monster War (2016)
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  Captain America
  The Ghost Army (2023)
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  Novels
  Samurai Shortstop (2006)
  The Brooklyn Nine (2009)
  Fantasy Baseball (2011)
  Prisoner B-3087 (2013)
  Code of Honor (2015)
  Projekt 1065 (2016)
  Refugee (2017)
  Ban This Book (2017)
  Grenade (2018)
  Allies (2019)
  Ground Zero (2021)
  Two Degrees (2022)
  Heroes (2024)
  War Games (2025)
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  Collections
  Alan Gratz Book series 1-8 Set (2022)
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  Novellas and Short Stories
  Resist (2019)
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  Series contributed to
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  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Alan Gratz
  Gratz in 2023
  Gratz in 2023
  Born January 27, 1972 (age 53)
  Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.[1]
  Occupation Author
  Education University of Tennessee (BA)
  Genre Young Adult Fiction, Historical Fiction
  Spouse Wendi Gratz[2]
  Children Jo Gratz[2]
  Alan Michael Gratz (born January 27, 1972) is the author of 19 novels for young adults including Prisoner B-3087, Code of Honor, Grenade, Something Rotten, Ground Zero, Refugee, and Two Degrees.

  Life
  Alan Gratz was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. He holds a B.A. in creative writing and a master's degree in English education, both from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.[2] During his time at the university, he worked for the school's newspaper, the Daily Beacon.[1]

  Gratz currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and daughter.[3]

  Published works
  Samurai Shortstop (Dial Books, 2006)[4]
  Something Rotten (Dial, 2007)[5]
  The Brooklyn Nine: A Novel In Nine Innings (Dial, 2009)[6]
  Fantasy Baseball (Dial, 2011)
  Starfleet Academy: The Assassination Game (Simon Spotlight, 2012)
  Prisoner B-3087 (Scholastic, 2013)[7]
  The League of Seven (Tor Forge, 2014)
  The Dragon Lantern: A League of Seven Novel (Tor Forge, 2015)
  Code of Honor (2015)
  The Monster War: A League of Seven Novel (Tor Forge, 2016)
  Projekt 1065 (Scholastic, 2016)
  Ban This Book (Tor Forge, 2017)
  Refugee (Scholastic, 2017)
  Grenade (Scholastic, 2018)
  Allies (novel) (Scholastic, 2019)
  Resist (Scholastic, 2020)
  Ground Zero (Scholastic, 2021)
  Two Degrees (Scholastic, 2022)
  Captain America: The Ghost Army (Scholastic, 2023)[8]
  Heroes (Scholastic, 2024)[9]
  War Games (Scholastic, 2025)[10]
  Produced plays
  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Knoxville Actors Co-op, 2004), adapted from the 1820 short story by Washington Irving
  Measured in Labor: The Coal Creek Project (Knoxville Actors Co-op, 2004)
  Young Hickory (Knoxville Actors Co-op, 1999)
  The Gift of the Magi (Knoxville Actors Co-op, 1999), adapted from the 1905 short story by O. Henry
  Indian Myths and Legends (Knoxville Actors Co-op, 1998)
  Sweet Sixteen (Knoxville Actors Co-op, 1998)
  Other writing credits
  Episodes of the A&E Network show City Confidential[2]
  Somerset, KY: A Killer Campaign (2004)
  Lexington, KY: A Parting Shot (2004)
  Seattle, WA: The Long Walk Home (2004)
  Pikeville, KY: Kentucky Gothic (2005)
  The League of Seven Prequels
  "Join, or Die: A League of Seven Short Story" Malaprop's Bookstore exclusive preorder Chapbook (2014)
  "Hero of the Five Points" Tor.com exclusive short story (2014)
  Grants and awards
  Finalist, 2002 Marguerite de Angeli Contest (now known as the Delacorte Dell Yearling Contest for a First Middle-Grade Novel)
  Co-winner, 2003 Kimberly Colen Memorial Grant from SCBWI[11]
  Winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in the Young Adult Literature category for his book Refugee[12]
  Winner of the 2018 Global Read Aloud in the Middle School/Junior High Choice category of his book Refugee.
  Winner of the 2019–2020 Young Hoosier Book Award (Middle Grades) for Refugee[13]
  2020 Buxtehude Bull for Refugee (german translation)[14]

• Publishers Weekly - https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/98188-alan-gratz-is-going-for-the-gold.html

  Alan Gratz Is Going for the Gold
  Riding the wave of interest in middle grade historical fiction, Alan Gratz returns to Nazi Germany with a fast-paced Olympic thriller, and releases a graphic novel adaptation of a backlist bestseller
  By Linda Lowen | Jul 11, 2025
  Share Post Post Click Here

  Alan Gratz always knew a career in teaching lay in his future. He’d learned by example from his mother, an elementary school teacher. Yet when he came across his grandfather’s old Underwood typewriter sitting unused in the garage as a child, the discovery opened up another vocation. He typed up a newspaper with hand-drawn cartoons, which his mother copied on a school mimeograph machine. “I would go up and down the street putting them in people’s mailboxes.” That typewriter now lives in the home office he shares with his wife Wendi, just one of several relics from his path to becoming a bestselling author.

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  Having spent a year as an eighth grade English teacher, Gratz understands middle schoolers from close observation. “Those three years of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade are a time of learning who you are as a person,” he says via Zoom from his home in Portland, Ore. “They’re still kids. They play kickball, pull pranks on each other. But they’re also having their first serious relationships, starting to drink or experiment with drugs, questioning their place in the larger world.”

  Gratz’s first book for that age group, Samurai Shortstop, came out in 2006. His other early titles—baseball, mystery, and fantasy books—did well enough, but a midcareer pivot to World War II thrillers caused his sales to skyrocket. For his 20th title, War Games, due out on October 7, Scholastic is printing 200,000 copies, on top of the nine million copies of other Gratz titles the publisher already has in print.

  His seventh book, Prisoner B-3087, based on the life of concentration camp survivor Jack Gruener, marked his entry into the WWII genre in 2013. Scholastic editor Aimee Friedman wanted to adapt Gruener’s story, and when a colleague recommended Gratz, she read his work and says she immediately knew “he would do a wonderful job telling it in a way that was compelling and accessible to young readers.” It was Gratz’s first book with Scholastic, and Friedman adds, “It launched Alan on the journey to author stardom.”

  Gratz returned to WWII with 2016’s Projekt 1065, about an Irish boy whose father is Ireland’s ambassador to Nazi Germany. He speaks impeccable German, is a Hitler Youth member, and hides his double life as a spy in Berlin. After the book’s publication, Gratz realized that he could be more intentional about connecting his plots and characters to present-day issues.

  Refugee, released in 2017, had what Gratz calls “a little bit more timing and purpose.” He says he braided the stories of a Jewish boy fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939, a Cuban girl in 1994, and a Syrian boy in 2015, because their circumstances “were coming at me right at that moment.” He’d already discussed with his editor the story of the MS St. Louis, an ocean liner that in 1939 left Germany carrying 900 Jewish refugees. During a Florida vacation, he stumbled across a beached raft while the Syrian refugee crisis played out on television. The collision of circumstances prompted him to write about both. PW named Refugee one of its best books of 2017, and it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than four years. In October, Scholastic will publish Refugee: The Graphic Novel, with text adapted by Gratz and illustrations by Syd Fini.

  Unlike his imperiled young protagonists, Gratz had a blissfully uneventful childhood in the suburbs of Knoxville, Tenn. His subdivision was surrounded by cow pastures and fields—landscapes Gratz and his friends investigated. Throughout high school, “I wanted to tell stories, but I didn’t know any authors,” Gratz says. “I thought you had to be from New York or Los Angeles to write books.” It was during a senior year internship at the Knoxville News Sentinel that he realized that journalism wasn’t for him.

  Attending the University of Tennessee’s College Scholars Program enabled him to concentrate on a thesis-level project—in his case, a book. “I went all in on fiction writing,” he says. He earned both undergrad and graduate degrees there. “I learned how to write but not how to make any money at it,” he admits.

  Gratz completed two novels during his years teaching. “I sent them out and got back good rejection letters,” he says. “I was getting close.” At the same time, impending parenthood prompted a reassessment of the future. “Wendi, in words that will live in infamy, said, ‘You’ve wanted to write since you were a kid. Quit your job, be a stay-at-home dad. Write another book, sell it.’ ” Just before his daughter’s first birthday, Gratz sold Samurai Shortstop.

  In War Games, 13-year-old Evie Harris competes in the 1936 Berlin Olympics—an event that has fascinated Gratz for years. “Jesse Owens, obviously, is the huge story,” he says of the Black track-and-field star who won four gold medals. “And Hitler’s up in the stands watching all of this. And we’re three years away from World War II.”

  Sports books, he knows, often fall back on a scrappy underdog who comes from behind and wins the big game. To avoid that, War Games is a twist on “going for the gold”—a heist story in which Evie and two other Olympians steal gold from the German Reichsbank. Gratz praises his Friedman for helping him shape a tight narrative: “Aimee and I worked hard to identify the heart of the story, and cut away enough so that it’s really obvious—and apparent to the young readers.”

  Friedman, in turn, says Gratz “never sugarcoats the harsh realities,” yet makes intense topics relatable and inspiring. “His young characters all have agency. The secret sauce of Alan’s books is fast-paced, cinematic storytelling with insightful takes on social themes that speak to kids today.”

  Gratz says he believes that WWII stories resonate so deeply with middle school readers because “there’s not a lot of ambiguity: we were on the side of right, fought with others against an evil, and we won. Middle school readers have a strong sense of justice. When you show them something wrong, they’ll say, Well, why can’t we fix it? They look at the Holocaust and ask, How could people be that awful to each other? But also, how could we have let this happen?”

  In some ways, Gratz explains, he writes for himself; as a kid he was unaware of issues that are now the focus of his writing. But in high school, he started asking himself what he really believes. “If I’d had my own books back in middle school, maybe I would have come around to knowing who I am earlier.”

  Before Covid, in-person school visits nearly took over Gratz’s life: he’d spend up to 200 nights away from home and family each year. Full days meant staying up until 5 a.m. writing to meet deadlines. Exhausted after a decade, he needed a change. Today, he concentrates on virtual presentations.

  What hasn’t changed is the message behind Gratz’s books. “I want to teach empathy,” he says. “I want people to understand the viewpoints of others, and that we are better together than apart. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that 10 years ago. It took me writing a few books—and coming to that theme every time, naturally, as a writer—to understand.”

  Linda Lowen is a writer, editor, and theater reviewer living in Syracuse, N.Y.

Gratz, Alan WAR GAMES Scholastic (Children's None) $18.99 10, 7 ISBN: 9781338736106

In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler's Olympic Games.

When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie's door, and soon she's dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills--to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade--the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on theMission Impossible-style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens' famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author's note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there's no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they're suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.

Fast-paced and plot-driven.(Historical fiction. 9-12)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Gratz, Alan: WAR GAMES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A853631289/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a71abec8. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

Gratz, Alan REFUGEE Graphix/Scholastic (Children's None) $14.99 10, 7 ISBN: 9781338733969

In this graphic version of Gratz's bestselling 2017 novel, three groups of refugees in different eras face bitter hardship and persecution in the course of desperate searches for safety.

Set respectively in 1938, 1994, and 2015, the accounts involve a passenger ship full of German Jews, a thrown-together group of Cubans on a leaky boat, and a bombed-out Syrian family striking out for the E.U. The original novel folded in actual experiences and, in some cases, real people, unspooling three storylines in short, interleaved chapters; this new edition preserves that structure. It's a tossup whether the change in format offers any real advantages. On the one hand, actually seeing expressively posed characters and the period details around them brings both the cast and the settings sharply to life, moments of crisis and terror have cinematic impact, and racial and cultural differences remain strongly present. On the other, though, because the graphic "chapters" are only three to five pages each, and all the art is done in a similar style and palette, the dozens of switches from one storyline to the next come with dizzying frequency and can't help but impede the narrative flow. Still, after skillfully interweaving his three powerful stories together at their ends, the author urgently invites readers to contemplate their contrasts, parallels, and ever-cogent common themes.

An effective adaptation, still relevant and likely to find a fresh audience. (afterword)(Graphic historical fiction. 10-13)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Gratz, Alan: REFUGEE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A849503130/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0f4ae8c1. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

War Games

Alan Gratz. Scholastic Press, $18.99 (368p)

ISBN 978-1-3387-3610-6

* | In a smartly plotted pageturner by Gratz (Resist: A Story of D-Day), young athletes competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics literally go for the gold upon becoming embroiled in a plot to rob the German national bank. Oklahoma gymnast Evie dreams of winning Olympic gold and pulling her family out of financial precarity. When she falls short of passing a qualifying round, she's approached by unscrupulous, apparently British journalist Solomon,who proposes that Evie--alongside German weightlifter Karl and French diver Ursula--help him steal Nazi gold. Though their athletic capabilities seemingly guarantee they can overcome the Reichsbank's security measures, the trio must first locate a secret tunnel beneath the Olympic stadium to facilitate the break-in, a task made harder by the watchful presence of Evie's designated Youth Services Host Heinz, whom she believes is a Hitler Youth spy. Well-researched historical facts add tooth to this cinematic novel's shocking twists and turns. Layered depictions of Nazi discrimination against Jewish, Black, and queer individuals--and how it impacts the story lines of Karl, who is gay, and biracial Ursula, who is Black and white--are a standout feature of this riveting adventure. An author's note contextualizes included figures and events. Ages 9-12. (Oct.)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"War Games." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 28, 21 July 2025, p. 88. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A848995809/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=86eb5e1c. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

ALAN GRATZ always knew a career in teaching lay in his future. He'd learned by example from his mother, an elementary school teacher. Yet when he came across his grandfather's old Underwood typewriter sitting unused in the garage as a child, the discovery opened up another vocation. He typed up a newspaper with hand-drawn cartoons, which his mother copied on a school mimeograph machine. "I would go up and down the street putting them in people's mailboxes." That typewriter now lives in the home office he shares with his wife Wendi, just one of several relics from his path to becoming a bestselling author.

Having spent a year as an eighth grade English teacher, Gratz understands middle schoolers from close observation. "Those three years of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade are a time of learning who you are as a person," he says via Zoom from his home in Portland, Ore. "They're still kids. They play kickball, pull pranks on each other. But they're also having their first serious relationships, starting to drink or experiment with drugs, questioning their place in the larger world."

Gratz's first book for that age group, Samurai Shortstop, came out in 2006. His other early titles--baseball, mystery, and fantasy books--did well enough, but a mid-career pivot to World War II thrillers caused his sales to skyrocket. For his 20th title, War Games, due out on October 7, Scholastic is printing 200,000 copies, on top of the nine million copies of other Gratz titles the publisher already has in print.

His seventh book, Prisoner B-3087, based on the life of concentration camp survivor Jack Gruener, marked his entry into the WWII genre in 2013. Scholastic editor Aimee Friedman wanted to adapt Gruener's story, and when a colleague recommended Gratz, she read his work and says she immediately knew "he would do a wonderful job telling it in a way that was compelling and accessible to young readers." It was Gratz's first book with Scholastic, and Friedman adds, "It launched Alan on the journey to author stardom."

Gratz returned to WWII with 2016's Projekt 1065, about an Irish boy whose father is Ireland's ambassador to Nazi Germany. He speaks impeccable German, is a Hitler Youth member, and hides his double life as a spy in Berlin. After the book's publication, Gratz realized that he could be more intentional about connecting his plots and characters to present-day issues.

Refugee, released in 2017, had what Gratz calls "a little bit more timing and purpose." He says he braided the stories of a Jewish boy fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939, a Cuban girl in 1994, and a Syrian boy in 2015, because their circumstances "were coming at me right at that moment." He'd already discussed with his editor the story of the MS St. Louis, an ocean liner that in 1939 left Germany carrying 900 Jewish refugees. During a Florida vacation, he stumbled across a beached raft while the Syrian refugee crisis played out on television. The collision of circumstances prompted him to write about both. PW named Refugee one of its best books of 2017, and it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than four years. In October, Scholastic will publish Refugee: The Graphic Novel, with text adapted by Gratz and illustrations by Syd Fini.

Unlike his imperiled young protagonists, Gratz had a blissfully uneventful childhood in the suburbs of Knoxville, Tenn. His subdivision was surrounded by cow pastures and fields--landscapes Gratz and his friends investigated. Throughout high school, "I wanted to tell stories, but I didn't know any authors," Gratz says. "I thought you had to be from New York or Los Angeles to write books." It was during a senior year internship at the Knoxville News Sentinel that he realized that journalism wasn't for him.

Attending the University of Tennessee's College Scholars Program enabled him to concentrate on a thesis-level project--in his case, a book. "I went all in on fiction writing," he says. He earned both undergrad and graduate degrees there. "I learned how to write but not how to make any money at it," he admits.

Gratz completed two novels during his years teaching. "I sent them out and got back good rejection letters," he says. "I was getting close." At the same time, impending parenthood prompted a reassessment of the future. "Wendi, in words that will live in infamy, said, 'You've wanted to write since you were a kid. Quit your job, be a stay-at-home dad. Write another book, sell it.' " Just before his daughter's first birthday, Gratz sold Samurai Shortstop.

In War Games, 13-year-old Evie Harris competes in the 1936 Berlin Olympics--an event that has fascinated Gratz for years. "Jesse Owens, obviously, is the huge story," he says of the Black track-and-field star who won four gold medals. "And Hitler's up in the stands watching all of this. And we're three years away from World War II."

Sports books, he knows, often fall back on a scrappy underdog who comes from behind and wins the big game. To avoid that, War Games is a twist on "going for the gold"--a heist story in which Evie and two other Olympians steal gold from the German Reichsbank. Gratz praises his Friedman for helping him shape a tight narrative: "Aimee and I worked hard to identify the heart of the story, and cut away enough so that it's really obvious--and apparent to the young readers."

Friedman, in turn, says Gratz "never sugar-coats the harsh realities," yet makes intense topics relatable and inspiring. "His young characters all have agency. The secret sauce of Alan' s books is fast-paced, cinematic storytelling with insightful takes on social themes that speak to kids today."

Gratz says he believes that WWII stories resonate so deeply with middle school readers because "there's not a lot of ambiguity: we were on the side of right, fought with others against an evil, and we won. Middle school readers have a strong sense of justice. When you show them something wrong, they'll say, Well, why can't we fix it? They look at the Holocaust and ask, How could people be that awful to each other? But also, how could we have let this happen?"

In some ways, Gratz explains, he writes for himself; as a kid he was unaware of issues that are now the focus of his writing. But in high school, started asking himself what he really believes. "If I'd had my own books back in middle school, maybe I would have come around to knowing who I am earlier."

Before Covid, in-person school visits nearly took over Gratz's life: he'd spend up to 200 nights away from home and family each year. Full days meant staying up until 5 a.m. writing to meet deadlines. Exhausted after a decade, he needed a change. Today, he concentrates on virtual presentations.

What hasn't changed is the message behind Gratz's books. "I want to teach empathy," he says. "I want people to understand the viewpoints of others, and that we are better together than apart. I wouldn't have been able to tell you that 10 years ago. It took me writing a few books--and coming to that theme every time, naturally, as a writer--to understand."

By LINDA LOWEN

"STAR WARS WAS A DE FACTO BABYSITTER FOR GRATZ. HE TOLD ME, 'MY MOM USED TO DROP ME OFF AT THE THEATER WITH $5, ENOUGH FOR TWO MOVIE TICKETS AND FOUR HOURS WORTH OF CONCESSIONS SNACKS. I MUST HAVE SEEN THAT MOVIE DOZENS OF TIMES.'"

Linda Lowen is a writer, editor, and theater reviewer living in Syracuse, N.Y.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Lowen, Linda. "Going for Gold: Riding the wave of interest in middle grade historical fiction, Alan Gratz returns to Nazi Germany with a fast-paced Olympic thriller, and releases a graphic novel adaptation of a backlist bestseller." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 27, 14 July 2025, pp. 18+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A848166820/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=55e151dd. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

Gratz, Alan RESIST Scholastic (Children's None) $9.99 3, 4 ISBN: 9781546179382

Knowing that her mother has been seized by the Nazis and will likely be shot at dawn, young Samira Zidane sets out on a seemingly hopeless rescue.

In this slim side story featuring characters from 2019'sAllies (and first published as a free extra), suspense runs high as the 12-year-old French Algerian girl races through the night in June 1944 to reach Bayeaux, France, where captured members of the Resistance are being held before their scheduled executions. Even if she arrives in time, what can she do? Repeatedly rising to the occasion as she slips past Nazi soldiers, guides an Allied unit on a mission behind enemy lines, and finally arrives just in time to see her mother and other captives being led into the forest to dig their own graves, Samira proves herself to be as resourceful as her indomitable mother. Readers will find her courage all the more admirable as Gratz makes the danger of being a civilian caught between occupiers and invaders on that fateful night (or any other time) breathlessly palpable. The author depicts a diverse cast; along the way Samira meets characters identified as both Black and white.

Tense, nonstop adventure in a historic setting.(Historical fiction. 10-12)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
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"Gratz, Alan: RESIST." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A837325715/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a2697560. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

Gratz, Alan HEROES Scholastic (Children's None) $17.99 2, 6 ISBN: 9781338736076

A vivid account of the Pearl Harbor attack through the eyes of a tween boy.

It's December 1941 in Hawaii. The war overseas feels distant for 13-year-old Frank McCoy, a white Florida transplant and son of a Navy fighter pilot, and his best friend, Stanley Summers, a biracial (Japanese American and white) local boy whose dad works at the Naval Air Station. The boys are preoccupied with the superhero comic they're creating together. But on December 7th, while Frank's sister's sailor boyfriend is giving them a tour of the USS Utah, Japanese planes begin bombing Pearl Harbor. In the fast-paced chapters that follow, the boys witness numerous horrors. They also recognize that Stanley is increasingly perceived with hostility by many white people; this awareness ultimately allows Frank to address an episode that haunts him from his past relating to friendship, loyalty, and mental health. The humanity of the characters and the on-the-ground perspective evoke sympathy for those who perished in the attack. Foreshadowing Spider-Man's most famous line, the book ties together the friends' love of superheroes ("Getting superpowers is one thing. Choosing how to use your powers is another") with commentary in the author's note on America's responsibility to use its immense powers wisely ("what we continue to do now and in the future, will decide if we are heroes"). The novel closes with Frank and Stanley's 10-page comic, which serves as an epilogue.

A propulsive wartime story with an earnest protagonist at its heart. (language note, map) (Historical fiction. 9-13)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Gratz, Alan: HEROES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777736829/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=39f5a6c8. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

* Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor. By Alan Gratz. Feb. 2024. 272p. Scholastic, $18.99 (9781338736076). Gr.4-7.

Pearl Harbor, December 6, 1941. It's another day in paradise for white 13-year-old Frank McCoy and his best friend, Japanese American Stanley Summers, united by their love of the comics they create together. For Frank, though, the perfection is compromised by a closely guarded secret: he's been afraid of everything since what he calls The Incident (he was mauled by a dog and has the scars to prove it). The next day, December 7, a seaman invites the boys to tour the decommissioned battleship Utah. They eagerly accept and are aboard when paradise becomes hell as a wave of Japanese planes attacks, destroying virtually the entire American fleet in the harbor. In a thrilling, white-knuckle set piece, Gratz (Captain America: The Ghost Army, 2023) recreates the attack and Frank's and Stanley's harrowing experience of it. Just surviving tests the boys' mettle, as Frank swallows his fears and rescues a drowning seaman, becoming, at least for a while, a Hero. Gratz does his usual splendid job of creating the visceral drama of battle alongside fully realized characters. He handles the theme of heroism well, while not straying into the didactic, and is especially good at depicting the enduring friendship of the two boys as, together, they experience the date that will live in infamy.--Michael Cart

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Source Citation
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Cart, Michael. "Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 9-10, 1 Jan. 2024, pp. 67+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A780973535/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6a40e68a. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

"Gratz, Alan: WAR GAMES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A853631289/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a71abec8. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025. "Gratz, Alan: REFUGEE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A849503130/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0f4ae8c1. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025. "War Games." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 28, 21 July 2025, p. 88. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A848995809/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=86eb5e1c. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025. Lowen, Linda. "Going for Gold: Riding the wave of interest in middle grade historical fiction, Alan Gratz returns to Nazi Germany with a fast-paced Olympic thriller, and releases a graphic novel adaptation of a backlist bestseller." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 27, 14 July 2025, pp. 18+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A848166820/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=55e151dd. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025. "Gratz, Alan: RESIST." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A837325715/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a2697560. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025. "Gratz, Alan: HEROES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777736829/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=39f5a6c8. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025. Cart, Michael. "Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 9-10, 1 Jan. 2024, pp. 67+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A780973535/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6a40e68a. Accessed 2 Nov. 2025.

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