Winner: Girl in the blue coat

 Louis undercover:

This graphic novel dealt with a couple of important themes in a child's life, an alcoholic parent and his parents separation, but some of our team found the book too superficial for the subject matter.  It was beautifully illustrated but at times hard to follow the story line as there were jumps in the time line and we had a hard time knowing which character was speaking for these reasons we are moving Girl with the blue coat forward.

Girl in the blue coat:

Is a deeply moving story about a young woman living in Amsterdam during WWII.  She deals in black market goods to help her family survive.  She carries a heavy burden of sorrow and guilt as she cannot stop thinking about the death of her boyfriend and how she had convinced him to enlist.  She gets caught up in a mystery at the beginning of the book which has her confronting people from her past and encountering the German resistance. There are many YA books about WWII but this is the first one we have read that has dealt with the German invasion into Holland.