Keep Smiling Through Book

This is the story of Kay, the younger sister of two older brothers, living on a farm in New Jersey during WW2. She and her brothers are chiefly entertained by radio shows and playing in the countryside, and her brothers save their allowance to purchase radio-show tie-in merchandise they send away for. Kay is too young to receive allowance. Their mother died when Kay was born, and their father married another woman, "Amazing" Grace, so nicknamed by the black housekeeper, Queenie, who has been a steady support to Kay. Grace is a mean step-mother who insists that the children do a lot of work around the house while she keeps the special-rationed items like Bosco for chocolate milk for herself. Queenie finally decides she has had enough and leaves in the middle of the night (after saying good-bye to Kay). Around the same time, Kay's best friend, fellow non-conformist, Jennifer, finds out her brother is MIA in Europe, and the Golden Band of popular girls suddenly absorbs her, leaving Kay alone at school. Kay does her best, bravely going to see Mrs. Leudloff (a Nazi spy?) for eggs instead of the regular Jewish family at Grace's insistence. One day, Kay and Grace's German father walk over to his friend Ernie's for ice cream, and Kay overhears a conversation they have about "the old country" and Hitler's plans. Ernie gives Grandpa a pamphlet that turns out to be Nazi propaganda, and all of a sudden, a group of vigilantes comes and attacks Grandpa for being a Nazi while throwing a rock through Ernie's window. Kay gets the license number but is conflicted about what to say about the pamphlet and conversation she overheard. Ultimately, she makes a brave choice, but it doesn't work out the way it does in the radio shows.

While the story is a generally good one emphasizing following your own sense of right and wrong, it felt like a dated viewpoint. I did not appreciate the use of the epithet "Japs" even though it was realistic for Kay and her family to use it. I did appreciate that Mrs. Leudloff ended up being a sympathetic character. Part of what I didn't like was the author's note at the beginning, written in 1995, that said, among other things, "as a generation of youngsters we did not grow up hating, vicious, fearful, or dysfunctional...most of the kids I grew up with became whole, contributing citizens, stayed married to their original mates, raised good children, worked hard, and took their lumps as they came, without complaining." While I am sure this was Rinaldi's experience, it sounded so much like a Beaver Cleaver kind of viewpoint that swept a lot of the hate and dysfunction under the rug.