For Ages
8 to 12

Beautiful Blue World is a thrilling and moving story of children who become the key to winning a war.
 
Sofarende is at war. For twelve-year-old Mathilde, it means food shortages, feuding neighbors, and bombings. Even so, as long as she and her best friend, Megs, are together, they’ll be all right.
 
But the army is recruiting children, and paying families well for their service. If Megs takes the test, Mathilde knows she will pass. Megs hopes the army is the way to save her family. Mathilde fears it might separate them forever.
 
This touching and suspenseful novel is a brilliant reimagining of war, where even kindness can be a weapon, and children have the power to see what adults cannot.

Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, Outstanding Merit
ILA-CBC Choices Reading Lists, Teacher’s Choice
Junior Library Guild Selection
Nominated for multiple state awards

An Excerpt fromBeautiful Blue World

1

 

 

Megs and I froze on my front step.

 

We’d seen the notices on our walk home, pinned to every door, fluttering in the chill winter breeze: white butterflies tacked down, wishing to fly free.

 

It was better to think of them that way, like butterflies.

 

Because they also looked like white flags of surrender.

 

“Did you get one?” I asked, craning my neck to check two doors down, where Megs lived.

 

“Everyone did.”

 

I looked at her, my best friend and opposite-twin, her dark braids mirroring my light ones. She realized the edge in her tone. It had snuck in, at least once a day, since her father had left to fight. Been ordered to fight.

 

It’s not you she’s mad at.

 

Her bright blue eyes, watering in the cold, took me in. A smile came to them as one appeared across her pink, chapped cheeks. “Come on, let’s see what mine says.” She offered her hand, led me past the Hellers’ between us, to her own house. “See, we’re assigned together! Whatever it is, it won’t be so bad, Mathilde.”

 

“But—why do we…

Under the Cover