The Good War

by Todd Strasser (Author)

Reading Level: 6th − 7th Grade
From the author of The Wave comes a poignant and timely novel about a group of seventh graders who are brought together—and then torn apart—by an afterschool club that plays a video game based on WW2.

There's a new afterschool club at Ironville Middle School.

Ms. Peterson is starting a video game club where the students will playing The Good War, a new game based on World War II.

They are divided into two teams: Axis and Allies, and they will be simulating a war they know nothing about yet. Only one team will win. But what starts out as friendly competition, takes an unexpected turn for the worst when one player takes the game too far.

Can an afterschool club change the way the students see each other...and how they see the world?
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Publishers Weekly

Through a grant, "Extra Credit" Caleb Arnett has secured top-of-the-line gaming computers for Ironville Middle School, a largely white institution whose football team was cut due to funding, and he's now one of the inaugural members of the school's eSports club. With teacher approval, the kids, including team captains Emma Lopez and Gavin Morgenstern, select The Good War--a WWII game in which players take the sides of Axis or Allies. The students react in various ways to their new knowledge of Nazism: after a few weeks, Gavin's team asks to be Axis for every round, and they begin trying out German accents and clothes, seemingly unaware of these actions' implications. Online, an older white supremacist begins grooming one of the players, employing hateful rhetoric that coincides with outside intrusions of Nazi slogans and images into the club's chat box and matches. Strasser (The Summer of '69) packs a lot into this brief tale--while his damning of hate groups is anything but subtle, by using a gaming lens to explore the students' entrée to prejudice and radicalization, he succeeds in lending immediacy and accessibility to his cautionary tale. Ages 10-up. Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (Jan.)

Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-7--The kids at Ironville Middle School love "The Good War," a popular WWII-based video game. It's no wonder that when math teacher Ms. B starts an esports club, that's the game they want to play, with two teams competing against each other as Axis vs. Allies. It's not long before symbols of hatred from that era in history show up in the mannerisms and clothing of the kids on the Axis team, leading to a violent confrontation between the two sides. Strasser tells a compelling, character-driven tale, demonstrating a keen understanding of how tweens think. Juggling eight different characters, including upstanding Caleb, socially anxious Emma, misunderstood footballer Gavin, and bullied Zach, Strasser creates authentic and appealing individuals. Reminiscent of the characters in The Breakfast Club, the esports members evolve over the course of the novel, changing the way they see themselves--and their peers. None of the students' race or ethnicity are described; the town of Ironville is described as "mostly white." The novel drives home the consequences of the Axis students' dangerous embrace of hate images they have not been educated about and don't understand. The lesson is a bit undermined by the flawed premise that a public school teacher would permit seventh graders to play a rated M, first-person shooter game in a school club, even if they enjoy it at home. VERDICT A timely message, engagingly told. Purchase for middle grade collections.--Marybeth Kozikowski, Sachem P.L., Holbrook, NY

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes

"By using a gaming lens to explore the students' entrée to prejudice and radicalization, he succeeds in lending immediacy and accessibility to his cautionary tale." —Kirkus Reviews

"A quick read and a thought-provoking reflection of the underbelly of our times." —The Horn Book
Todd Strasser
In his past life, Todd Strasser has been a street musician, composer, reporter, and a fortune-cookie mogul. Now an author of books for teens and middle-graders, he has written more than 140 books, including the bestselling Help! I'm Trapped In series, The Wave, Give a Boy a Gun, and Can't Get There from Here.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9780593173671
Lexile Measure
750
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Delacorte Press
Publication date
February 01, 2022
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV016080 - Juvenile Fiction | Historical | Military & Wars
JUV039120 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Prejudice & Racism
JUV016060 - Juvenile Fiction | Historical | Holocaust
Library of Congress categories
World War, 1939-1945
Middle schools
Prejudices
Contests
Clubs
Video games
Radicalization

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