Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein

Overview

Don’t miss Elizabeth Wein’s stunning new novel, Stateless!

The beloved #1 New York Times bestseller, a "fiendishly plotted" (New York Times) "heart-in-your mouth adventure" (Washington Post) that "will take wing and soar into your heart" (Laurie Halse Anderson).

October 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

A universally acclaimed Michael L. Printz Award Honor book, Code Name Verity is a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781423152194
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	05/15/2012
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	576,491
Product dimensions:	5.86(w) x 8.36(h) x 1.16(d)
Lexile:	1020L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Elizabeth Wein (www.elizabethwein.com) was born in New York City, grew up abroad, and currently lives in Scotland with her husband and two children. She is an avid flyer of small planes and is the editor of the Scottish Aero Club’s newsletter. She also holds a PhD in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania.

Editorial Reviews

Wein (The Empty Kingdom) serves up a riveting and often brutal tale of WWII action and espionage with a powerful friendship at its core. Captured Scottish spy Queenie has agreed to tell her tale—and reveal any confidential information she knows—in exchange for relief from being tortured by Nazis. Her story, which alternates between her early friendship with a pilot named Maddie and her recent sufferings in prison, works both as a story of cross-class friendship (from an upper-crust family, Queenie realizes that she would likely never have met Maddie under other circumstances) and as a harrowing spy story (Queenie’s captor, von Loewe, is humanized without losing his menace). Queenie’s deliberately rambling and unreliable narration keeps the story engaging, and there are enough action sequences and well-delivered twists (including a gut-wrenching climax and late revelations that will have readers returning to reread the first half of the book) to please readers of all stripes. Wein balances the horrors of war against genuine heroics, delivering a well-researched and expertly crafted adventure. Ages 14–up. Agent: Ginger Clark, Curtis Brown. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"A fiendishly plotted mind game of a novel, the kind you have to read twice."—The New York Times

* "A carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching." —Kirkus, starred review

From the Publisher

★ 10/01/2015
A quick-witted British girl whose plane has crashed in Nazi-occupied France is forced by the Gestapo to confess to her country's war plans. Her writings detail her friendship with Maddie, the pilot who crashed the plane. A must for young adult collections, as is Wein's companion novel, Rose Under Fire, whose intelligence and emotional depth will appeal to adult readers as well. Pearl Cornioley's autobiography, Code Name Pauline, covers similar ground and can provide needed context to Wein's story. (LJ 11/15/12)

Library Journal

Breaking away from Arthurian legends (The Winter Prince, 1993, etc.), Wein delivers a heartbreaking tale of friendship during World War II. In a cell in Nazi-occupied France, a young woman writes. Like Scheherezade, to whom she is compared by the SS officer in charge of her case, she dribbles out information--"everything I can remember about the British War Effort"--in exchange for time and a reprieve from torture. But her story is more than a listing of wireless codes or aircraft types. Instead, she describes her friendship with Maddie, the pilot who flew them to France, as well as the real details of the British War Effort: the breaking down of class barriers, the opportunities, the fears and victories not only of war but of daily life. She also describes, almost casually, her unbearable current situation and the SS officer who holds her life in his hands and his beleaguered female associate, who translates the narrative each day. Through the layers of story, characters (including the Nazis) spring to life. And as the epigraph makes clear, there is more to this tale than is immediately apparent. The twists will lead readers to finish the last page and turn back to the beginning to see how the pieces slot perfectly, unexpectedly into place. A carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching. (Historical fiction. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews

This heart-in-your-mouth adventure has it all: a complex plot, a vivid sense of place and time, and resonant themes of friendship and courage. Practical Maddie and mischievous Julie are brought to life through their vibrant narrative voices and intriguing backstories…In this powerful work of historical fiction, Julie and Maddie need never fear "flying alone"; the reader will soar with them until the final page.
—Mary Quattlebaum

The Washington Post

To reveal almost anything about the way events in CODE NAME VERITY unfold would spoil the book’s many twists and turns and revelations. It all begins with Maddie, a young pilot, and Queenie, who are both part of the British war effort during WWII. The audiobook is its own revelation—narrators Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell bring Queenie and Maddie to vibrant life, and listeners will fall in love with them from the start. Gaskell and especially Christie perform (and even sing in) a variety of English and Scottish accents as well as flawless French and German. More than that, they so fully inhabit the characters that the most harrowing moments, so intimate and immediate on audio, are nearly unbearable. It's an extraordinary book, made even more extraordinary by their truly spellbinding narration. J.M.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, SYNC 2014 © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2012 - AudioFile