What do you do when your best friend becomes the enemy?
Growing up in Newark, NJ, in the 1930s, Tommy Anspach and Benjy Puterman
have always done everything together. It never mattered that Benjy was
Jewish and Tommy was of German descent. But as Adolph Hitler and his
Nazi party comes to power in Germany and war brews in Europe, everything
changes. Tommy is sent to Camp Nordland, a Nazi youth camp for German
Americans, where he quickly learns that Jews are the enemy. Heartbroken
by the loss of his friend, Benjy forms a teen version of the Newark
Minutemen, an anti-Nazi vigilante group, all the while hoping that Tommy
will abandon his extremist beliefs. Will Benjy and Tommy be able to
overcome their differences and be friends again?
Based on real-life events and groups like the Newark Minutemen and the
pro-Nazi German American Bund, this daring novel-in-verse reveals the
long history of American right-wing extremism, and its impact on the
lives of two ordinary teens.