Awards
2017 Oregon Book Award for Young Adult Literature
Synopses & Reviews
Critically acclaimed Sibert Honor author Deborah Hopkinson brings to bold life the remarkable story of the Danish resistance and rescue of over 7,000 Jews during WWII. When the Nazis invaded Denmark on Tuesday, April 9, 1940, the people of this tiny country to the north of Germany awoke to a devastating surprise. The government of Denmark surrendered quietly, and the Danes were ordered to go about their daily lives as if nothing had changed. But everything had changed. Award-winning author Deborah Hopkinson traces the stories of the heroic young men and women who would not stand by as their country was occupied by a dangerous enemy. Rather, they fought back. Some were spies, passing tactical information to the British; some were saboteurs, who aimed to hamper and impede Nazi operations in Denmark; and 95% of the Jewish population of Denmark were survivors, rescued by their fellow countrymen, who had the courage and conscience that drove them to act. With her talent for digging deep in her research and weaving real voices into her narratives, Hopkinson reveals the thrilling truth behind one of WWII's most daring resistance movements.
About the Author
Deborah Hopkinson is the award-winning author of more than 40 books for young readers including picture books, historical fiction, and nonfiction.
Deborah”s nonfiction includes Titanic, Voices from the Disaster, which received a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction honor and a Robert F. Sibert Honor. Up Before Daybreak, Cotton and People in America, won a Carter G. Woodson Award Honor, and Shutting out the Sky, Life in the Tenements of New York 1880-1924, received an NCTE Orbis Pictus honor.
Deborah”s middle grade novels, The Great Trouble, A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel, won an Oregon Spirit Award and was named an Oregon Book Award finalist. Deborah has won the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for picture book text twice, for Apples to Oregon and A Band of Angels. Other picture books include Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, winner of the IRA Award; Sky Boys, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor book; and Keep On! The Story of Matthew Henson, Co-Discoverer of the North Pole, winner of the Oregon Book Award.
A native of Massachusetts, Deborah received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts and an M.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. A former professional in higher education fundraising, she and her husband, winemaker Andy Thomas, live in West Linn, Oregon and have two grown children.
Deborah is a frequent presenter at schools and conferences and is passionate about encouraging young readers to think like historians. Deborah”s forthcoming book from Scholastic in Fall 2015 is Courage & Defiance, Stories of Spies, Saboteurs, and Survivors in World War II Denmark.