About This Book:

New York Times bestselling authors Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch adapt their instant bestseller, The Nazi Conspiracy, for young readers to bring them the heart-pounding story of the assassination plot that nearly changed the course of history.

It’s 1943. Nazi Germany and its Axis power allies are ravaging Europe and the Pacific with a terrible war. At this juncture, President Franklin Roosevelt has one critical goal: a face-to-face meeting with his allies, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill.

The first ever meeting of the “Big Three” is set to take place in Tehran, Iran, where the leaders of the three great superpowers will discuss and decide on some of the most crucial strategic details of the war.

But when the Nazis learn about the meeting, they form their own secret, deadly plan: an assassination plot that would forever change history…if they’re successful.

This riveting true story, filled with daring rescues and high stakes intrigue, explains how this pivotal meeting in Tehran changed the course of World War II, and how the Nazi conspiracy to assassinate the Allied leaders nearly led to world-shattering disaster.

Renowned authors Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch bring their New York Times bestseller, The Nazi Conspiracy, to young readers for the first time with this action-packed page-turner that offers an informative overview of World War II and details the heart-pounding true story of the Nazi plot to assassinate Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the height of World War II.

Scholastic Focus is the premier home of thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and thoughtfully designed works of narrative nonfiction aimed at middle-grade and young adult readers. These books help readers learn about the world in which they live and develop their critical thinking skills, so that they may become dynamic citizens who are able to analyze and understand our past, participate in essential discussions about our present, and work to grow and build our future.

*Review Contributed by Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer*

It makes perfect sense that President Roosevelt would want to meet with Stalin and Churchill to discuss events during World War II, but it goes without saying that this would have been a perfect opportunity for the Nazis to try to kill all three when they are together. I’ve read a lot about World War II, and know from books like Seiple’s Nazi Saboteurs : Hitler’s Secret Attack on America and O’Reilly’s Hitler’s Last Days that the Germans were desperate and looking for any way they could find to turn the tide of the war in their favor. Remember, they also thought that giving soldiers cocaine would enable them to fight longer!

The meeting of the “big three” was supposed to take place in Tehran, Iran, and this book lays out all of the whys and wherefores in exquisite detail, making each chapter a tense look at events. There’s a lot of back and forth in time; each chapter is headed with the date and place where events occur, and we go back twenty years in order to learn about how the situation in Germany started. The chapters follow events all around the globe, and I got to be a bit confused. Make no mistake, however: I have middle school readers who would know everything that was happening and would probably be able to give me even more information about some of the events!

Good Points

I did love the inclusion of primary source material. There are plentiful maps and photographs as well as newspaper clippings, quotes from primary sources, and even a facsmile of Adolph Eichmann’s list estimating the entire Jewish population of Europ by country or territory. There’s a ten page bibliography and a quantity of source notes as well.

The book is by no means dry, even though it is incredibly well researched. If anything, it is written in a way that makes the events seem even more exciting than they probably were. I’ve had a couple of advance copies of this book, and while I have struggled to make my way through it, any time I have a copy lying on my desk, I invariably have a student beg to read it. I even had an 8th grade boy spend most of the grading period using this book for a nonfiction book project, and he would frequently stop by the library to share exciting bits that he gleaned from the text.

There certainly were a lot of plots to assassinate important figures during World War II, although I’m not aware of any that came to fruition. Middle grade readers are still enthralled with these stories, and there are always a few students who don’t really want to read anything BUT World War II stories! Include this young readers edition of Meltzer and Musch’s book on a WWII reading list that includes Marino’s The Plot to Kill Hitler, Bausum’s Ensnared in the Wolf’s Lair: Inside the 1944 Plot to Kill Hitler and the Ghost Children of His Revenge (about Operation Valkyrie), and McCormick, The Plot to Kill Hitler: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Unlikely Hero, and Bascomb’s The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi.

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