At the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation's leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults would not. Naming their secret club after the fiery British leader, the young patriots in the Churchill Club committed countless acts of sabotage, infuriating the Germans, who eventually had the boys tracked down and arrested. But their efforts were not in vain: the boys' exploits and eventual imprisonment helped spark a full-blown Danish resistance.
~ Goodreads (modified).
The Boys Who Challenged Hitler.
Knud Pedersen and the Churchill club
by Phillip Hoose
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2015
Nazi Occupation
The Nazi's invaded or occupied 15 different countries during the war. The above map shows Denmark, where the story takes place. Click on this link to see an interactive map of all the places Germany occupied.
Another famous resistance movement by young adults was started by Hans and Sophie Scholl, students at the University of Munich in Germany, and their friends Christoph Probst, Willi Graf, and Alexander Schmorell.
Meet The Author
Library of Congress. (2015, November 30. Phillip M. Hoose: 2015 National Book Festival [video]. Retrieived from YouTube.
Phillip Hoose attended the National Book Festival when this book was published. Watch the video to hear his talk. (To skip the introduction, skip to minute 3:18).
Fox Searchlight. (2015, June 22). He named me Malala : Official HD Trailer [video]. Retrieved from YouTube.
Book Trailer
The group distributed flyers in resistance to the Nazi regime. After a janitor at their university discovered them with the pamphlets, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst were arrested, tried and executed in 1943. Sophie Scholl was 21 years old. Click the image to learn more about them.