Review: Amazing World War II Stories

Timberdoodle has tons of products to teach your children history, but one of my son's favorites so far is Amazing World War II Stories-Four Incredible Tales.  Right off the bat in opening the package my son was  intrigued by the front cover. It was colorful and had soldiers planting a US flag on top of a hill.  Quite a few kids, especially boys, shy away from reading if the passages are too long. Both of my boys have been this way, so we have always looked long and hard for books that would interest them. This book helps alleviate that issue in that it's written in comic book style. This way there are lots of colorful pictures and not so much writing for those that don't love to read.  Sometimes it's not even so much that the child can't read the book, but that they focus so much on the reading that they miss comprehending what it's about. That's why I love this book because my son could read it and understand it or we could read it out loud.


My son loves history and we've been doing quite a bit of reading out loud to start our mornings.  This book became the first thing he asked for me to read each day. His only complaint was that there were only four tales, so it only took us four mornings to complete the book. He was very disappointed when we were done (LOL) Amazing World War II Stories is centered around four incredible tales. While we were reading this book I realized I only remembered hearing about one of these tales. I was so fascinated by the information that we learned that we then went to the internet to learn additional information.

The first tale was about the Navajo Code Talkers. Here we learned about the Navajo Indians entering the war to help keep the German's from decoding the messages. They learned previously that the Germans were able to intercept their messages. Thanks to Sergeant Philip Johnston of the U.S. Marine Corps who had lived on a Navajo Reservation as a child they were able to keep the German soldiers from intercepting any future messages. What I found sad was that after the war these gentleman were told they had to keep quite about what they did during the war.  The Navajo code talkers were used again in the Korean War and at the beginning of the Vietnam War.  The Navajo code was NEVER broken by the enemy!  It wasn't until 1968 that the information was declassified and these brave men could be recognized for their great works.

The second tales was of the Night Witches which were Soviet women pilots in World War II.  Marina Raskova became famous for being part of an historic flight in which her crewmates broke the world record for the longest flight made by women.  After the Natzi invasion women across the Soviet Union wrote to Raskova. They wanted to be pilots and help their country fight the war.  Stalin didn't think it was safe for women pilots, but others felt that they wanted to do the job and were needed.  These women flew amazing amounts of flights in many dangerous situations in old machines and often on little sleep.  At the end of the day these women wanted to fight for their country and return home to their families.

The Unbreakable Zamperini was the third and I thought most amazing tale. Louis Zamperini had competed in the 1936 Olympic Games and had plans to return in hopes of winning a gold medal. When the war broke out he joined the Army Air Corps.  He trained to be a bombardier which is a person that releases the bombs.  He and his crew were on a rescue mission in May 1943 when their plane went down. He and others ultimately became POW's.  He was singled out and treated horribly, being beaten daily. He refused to give in to his tormenter which caused additional beatings.  This tale teaches us about his strength and perseverance alone with his ultimate faith.

The final tales is the U.S. Ghost Army. Again I hadn't heard about this group, but my son was fasicinated with them.  This group was made up of people with creative backgrounds such as artists, actors, writers and even fashion artists. All in all there were 1,100 men in this group. Their mission was to make the enemy believe they were the real troops in hopes of allowing the other troops to complete their missions. They used inflatable tanks and sound recordings as part of their decoys. The Ghost Army was integral in the winning of the war.  These men were also told to never speak of their jobs and these records were kept secret for more than 40 years.  What's amazing about this branch of the Army is that they NEVER FIRED A SINGLE SHOT!

This book was amazing from the very first page we read up until the last.  It was full of information that we learned in a fun and colorful way. This book is recommended for ages 8-14. I think as with all recommendations you can use this however it fits your family. We read it out loud, but I know that this will be one of those books my son goes back and reads over and over. Thanks so much to Timberdoodle for providing Amazing world War II Stories to us to read.