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#Giveaway The Echoes of History by Ann Bausum #Win Ensnared in the Wolf’s Lair @AnnBausum @NGKidsBks Ends 2.21

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Welcome to the Ensnared Blog Tour!

To celebrate the release of Ensnared by Ann Bausum on January 12th, blogs across the web are featuring exclusive articles from Ann, plus 5 chances to win a hardcover copy!

by Ann Bausum

Snow flies past the moss-covered entrance to a bunker at the Wolf’s Lair, January 2015. © Ann Bausum, all rights reserved.
Sam and our guide approach the remains of one of the above-ground Wolf’s Lair bunkers, January 2015. © Ann Bausum, all rights reserved 

 

I’m not sure who got more excited in 2015 when my oldest son and I set off from Berlin one brisk January morning on a quest to visit the Wolf’s Lair—the site of the 1944 attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler. We departed aboard a sleek express train and spent the day transferring to a series of ever simpler rail carriages until, by twilight, we finally reached an outpost in Poland named Ketrzyn (roughly pronounced KETCH-in). The next morning snowflakes began to fall as we set out off for the former Nazi bunker. Our guided rambles around the frozen ruins of this site remain one of the most otherworldly explorations I’ve ever made.

Three years later Sam and I returned to Europe for further research. This time we homed in on the events of the Valkyrie assassination attempt and its related coup. We stood in the courtyard at the Bendler Block in Berlin where Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators had been shot, found our way to the execution chamber of Plötzensee Prison, and made a pilgrimage to the Borntal detention site on the edge of Bad Sachsa. Together we walked the grounds, studied the vacant houses where the Nazis had confined 46 children of the conspirators, and, with permission, explored the abandoned corridors and living spaces inside one of them.
Birds-eye view of the Bendler Block courtyard, Berlin, October 2018. © Ann Bausum, all rights reserved 

 

Two of the surviving houses at the Borntal, November 2018. © Ann Bausum, all rights reserved
Everywhere we went I felt the echoes of history. Then I met it face to face.

During a series of in-person visits and phone calls I had the privilege of interviewing people who had lived through the history I was exploring. Through these conversations I gained insights not only into their interactions with the past but the ways in which these experiences continued to reverberate through their lives and those of their family members. Our visits were a reminder that history isn’t an abstract collection of isolated events from the past. It is a legacy that surrounds us and endures long after places like the Wolf’s Lair fall into ruin.
We all share in the echoes of history.

*****

Blog Tour Schedule:

February 8th – – Teen Librarian Toolbox

February 9th – Christy’s Cozy Corners

February 10th  Bookhounds

February 11th – From the Mixed-Up Files

February 12th – Ms. Yingling Reads

 
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“I’ve come on orders from Berlin to fetch the three children.” –Gestapo agent, August 24, 1944
With those chilling words Christa von Hofacker and her younger siblings found themselves ensnared in a web of family punishment designed to please one man—Adolf Hitler. The furious dictator sought merciless revenge against not only Christa’s father and the other Germans who had just tried to overthrow his government. He wanted to torment their relatives, too, regardless of age or stature. All of them. Including every last child.
During the summer of 1944, a secretive network of German officers and civilians conspired to assassinate Adolf Hitler. But their plot to attack the dictator at his Wolf’s Lair compound failed, and an enraged Hitler demanded revenge. The result was a systematic rampage of punishment that ensnared not only those who had tried to topple the regime but their far-flung family members too. Within weeks, Gestapo agents had taken as many as 200 relatives from their homes, separating adults and children.
Using rare photographs and personal interviews with survivors, award-winning author Ann Bausum presents the spine-chilling little-known story of the failed Operation Valkyrie plot, the revenge it triggered, and the families caught in the fray.

ANN BAUSUM is an award-winning children’s book author who brings history alive by connecting readers to personal stories from the past that echo in the present day. Ensnared is her 11th book for National Geographic Kids and her fourth look at international history. While researching the book, she traveled twice to Europe to get to know the people and places that became intertwined in 1944 after the failed effort to kill Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair. Previously Bausum has explored international history with such works as Stubby the War Dog; Denied, Detained, Deported; and Unraveling Freedom. Many of her books highlight themes of social justice, including her National Geographic title The March Against Fear. In 2017, her body of work was honored by the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, DC. Individual titles have won numerous starred reviews and been recognized with a Sibert Honor Award, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, the Carter G. Woodson Award, and the SCBWI Golden Kite Award, among other distinctions.

GIVEAWAY
  • One (1) winner will receive a hardcover copy of Ensnared
  • Check out the other four stops for more chances to win
  • US/Can only
  • Ends 2/21 at 11:59pm ET

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Comments

  1. I know very little about this horrific time in human history and can’t wait to read and learn from this author’s work.

  3. T%his is an important bit of history that few get many details about, especially the young. I have always felt that one of the best ways for people of all ages to learn it to put it at a personal level. Whether that be in first person accounts or fictionalized versions of the events recounted in a manner based on fact, the reader can relate and will retain the information much more readily than from a textbook.

  4. I read books about WWII to understand, what my grandmother’s family faced during this time in Poland. We must never forget! A good book to introduce younger readers to the history of this time and help them understand, that this must never be allowed to be repeated.

  5. What an amazing journey, I am not sure I could have walked around the death camp. This piece of history must never be repeated. I have heard incredible stories from people who lived through out Europe and what they went through. Some of the stories ave me nightmares.

You'd have to have, like, a lentil for a soul to hate wiener dogs. ~Zuzana from The Daughter of Smoke & Bones by Laini Taylor