The Good War

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.)

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