Thirteen-year-old Piotr Bruck is one of the lucky ones. Orphaned the night Poland was invaded by the Nazis, he is sent to a Warsaw orphanage where German doctors hunt for children racially pure enough to "rehabilitate." They choose Piotr as a "magnificent specimen of Nordic youth," rename him Peter and send him to Berlin. There he becomes the foster son of Professor Franz Kaltenbach of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Peter must join the Hitler Youth, where he reluctantly begins to absorb the ideology of the Nazi Party. Everything changes when he discovers Anna Reiter, the beautiful squad leader of the League of German Maidens, sequestered in Peter's favorite corner of the library--mocking a picture of Adolf Hitler. Together the two find the courage to join an underground movement to help hide and transport Jews and smuggle food to starving Polish workers.
Dowswell (the Adventures of Sam Witchall series) has garnered positive reviews for his historical accuracy and stirring battle scenes. He has also written many nonfiction books for children. Socially and historically accurate, The Ausländer (in German, the "foreigner") is not only a mesmerizing read but would also be an excellent discussion book in high school history classes. --Jane Henriksen Baird, public librarian in Alaska