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Middle Grade Sidekick Super Review: War Games (2025) by Alan Gratz
- Jan 15
- 7 min read
The Basics
Page Length: 368
Audiobook Length: ~9 hours
Grade Reading Level: 4+
Target Audience Age: 8-14
Goodreads Score: 4.14 out of 5
Buy it HERE
Setting: 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany
Genre: Middle Grade Historical Fiction
Topics: Olympics, Nazi Germany, World Wars, Holocaust, Dust Bowl, Poverty, Heist, Adventure
Plot: Evie Harris is a thirteen-year-old American gymnast traveling to Berlin with dreams of winning Olympic gold and achieving fame. She hopes that a victory at the 1936 Olympics will lead to a career in Hollywood—money her family desperately needs after losing everything in the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, including her little brother. Evie’s life has changed dramatically: she has gone from living in a car to representing Team USA on an international stage.
When her dream of Olympic glory begins to slip away, Evie considers another way to bring home the gold—by robbing a Nazi Reichsbank. As she and her teammates plan the heist, Evie starts to uncover the hidden side of Berlin, the one the Nazis worked hard to conceal before the Olympics arrived. She realizes that her family is not the only one that has suffered; many others are facing loss, fear, and injustice as well.
As danger grows and the stakes rise, Evie must decide what truly matters. Will she return home with Olympic gold, Nazi gold, or nothing at all?
Themes: Prejudice and discrimination, courage and risk, family loyalty, propaganda vs truth, powerlessness, loss and grief, privilege, justice vs. revenge
You might like this book if you like:
The Olympics: this book's got a lot of gymnastics, and famous athletes like Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalf
Puzzles and strategy games
Team sports
Books like Max in the House of Spies, The Bletchley Riddle, The War that Saved My Life, Everything Sad is Untrue (A True Story), A Long Walk to Water
Shows like Liberty's Kids, Horrible Histories, and Goodnight Mister Tom
Movies/books like Monuments Men, Diary of Anne Frank, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Number the Stars, The Book Thief, Empire of the Sun
Other books written by this author: Refugee, Prisoner B-3087, Ground Zero, Allies, Grenade, Heroes, Two Degrees, Project 1065: A Novel of World War II
Teaching War Games in Class
Content
Language: a little. A few instances of mild language
Sex/Romance: none
Violence/Scariness: lots of discussions about Nazi mistreatment. A character talks about how his partner was arrested and sent to a concentration camp for being gay. Another mentions how she, and others, were sterilized by nazi soldiers for being physically or mentally disabled. During a heist a knife is thrown, and gunshots are exchanged
Drinking/Smoking/Drugs: none
Class Novel-ability: This would be an excellent choice for a class novel. It incorporates history lessons, sports, Olympic glory, heists, and adventure, as well as strong themes of friendship. It is a very well-rounded book in terms of interest level, with appeal for both girls and boys.
The main drawback is that it is somewhat long for a whole-class read. However, this length also makes it an excellent option for a book club or literature circle selection. The novel fits well within a World War II timeline, while also including meaningful references to the Dust Bowl. Because of this, it could be easily connected to a variety of topics and integrated into different units of study.
The Star Qualities
This novel includes real historical figures. It features real athletes from the 1936 Olympics, including Jesse Owens and other competitors, and accurately incorporates their Olympic events into the story. This blend of real people and historical moments with fiction helps students better connect to history and understand that these events truly happened.
The protagonist has a changing worldview. Evie’s worldview is deeply challenged throughout the novel, and she undergoes meaningful growth as her understanding of ethics and morality evolves. This is especially relatable for students at this age, who are beginning to look beyond themselves and consider larger moral questions. The book does an excellent job of fully developing this transformation.
I'm fascinated by this moment in history. The 1936 Berlin Olympics are an incredibly intriguing moment in history. Many people were beginning to sense the danger of Hitler’s ideology, but full proof of his atrocities was still hidden. The Holocaust was already underway, yet the Olympics continued, with countries coming together under the illusion of unity and normalcy. The novel also highlights how Hitler hired a filmmaker to produce a carefully staged film that presented Germany in a positive light to the rest of the world, reinforcing the theme of propaganda versus truth.
This book has pictures! My favorite ones were the illustrations of the heist drawn out. It makes it so much easier to visualize and understand all the intricate parts when you can see a detailed map like that. It was such a cool feature. I love heist storylines, but I enjoy them even more when I can understand them this clearly.
This author has TONS of other books. Alan Gratz has an extensive catalog of historical fiction, including several graphic novels. This makes him an excellent author for hooking reluctant readers. Once students enjoy one of his books, they have many more to choose from, ensuring they won’t quickly run out of engaging reading options.
The author has provided really cool teaching resources for this book. Click the link here to find a discussion guide a YouTube video of the author explaining and talking about the book. I also find the author's note at the end of the book very valuable. Check that out for more teaching help.
Book Talk Read Aloud Section
If you have the physical book, read chapter one (pages 7-12)
If you don't, read the same pages (locations 72-119) in the Kindle reading sample here.
"Reading Like a Writer" Mentor Texts
There’s a lot to like about this passage—the drama of the foreboding note, the rapid-fire rhetorical questions, the repetition for emphasis, and the way the stakes gradually escalate. There’s a lot here for students to choose from. PLUS I think it will really pique their interest in reading the book.
This is another great passage. The use of italics for emphasis and internal dialogue, colons, repetition, and sentence fragments—all of it works together to show the narrator’s desperation. It’s short, approachable, and PACKED with so many moves for students to choose from.
I really like the structure of this passage. It switches back and forth between the narrator doing gymnastics and the rhetorical questions of her internal monologue. The rhetorical questions escalate as she becomes more and more nervous about the possible collapse of the heist. The combination is SUPER dramatic. There’s also the use of italics for emphasis and clever wordplay at the end. It’s unique and impactful—and totally possible for students to imitate some of these moves.
This passage uses questions, patterned repetition, and parallel structure, along with foreshadowing and symbolism, to create a powerful, ominous tone. Tone can be difficult to craft intentionally, but this is an excellent example of how it can be done. Students can imitate these moves—especially the repetition and symbolic reframing—to create a strong sense of tone in their own writing.
Sentences for Combining and Imitation
Sentence sets for combining:
"The Olympic Stadium was a gigantic concrete oval, with two tiers of stands around a central field." (War Games, p. 13)
The Olympic Stadium was an oval.
It was a gigantic concrete oval.
It had two tiers of stands.
The stands were around a central field.
"The hallways underneath the stadium were filled with athletes, coaches, trainers, maintenance technicians, members of the press–and soldiers. (p. 113)
The hallways underneath the stadium were filled with athletes.
They were filled with coaches.
They were filled with trainers.
They were filled with maintenance technicians.
They were filled with members of the press.
And they were filled with soldiers.
"Karl and I pushed our crates into the corridor, and as the doors slid closed behind us, we got our first look at the secret tunnels underneath Berlin." (p. 268)
Karl and I pushed our crates into the corridor.
The doors slid closed behind us.
We got our first look at the tunnels.
The tunnels were secret, and underneath Berlin.
"One entire row of shelves held piles and piles of banknotes, sorted by amount, and another was stuffed full of silverware and candlesticks and other tableware that had been pounded flat to make it easier to store." (p. 291)
One entire row of shelves held piles and piles of banknotes.
The banknotes were sorted by amount.
Another shelf was stuffed full of silverware.
It was stuffed full of silverware, and candlesticks, and other tableware.
It had all been pounded flat to make it easier to store.
Sentences for Imitation:
I selected these sentences because they all have unique structures that can be easily imitated by students—colons, lists, em dashes, italics, ellipses. These are all small and simple techniques that students can learn to use, yet they create BIG impact.
"Some of the team uniforms, I noticed, were fun nods to traditional clothing: The French team wore blue berets, the Egyptians team wore fezzes, and the Mexican team wore sombreros." (p. 14)
"Win gold, get famous, become a movie star–well, you had to make the finals first, and I hadn’t even done that." (p. 69)
"The secret tunnels under Berlin were . . . kind of unexciting, actually." (p. 269)
"The third crate they left empty, as we had originally planned–to sneak Ursula in, and to sneak treasure out." (p. 323)
I also selected a few that just stood out to me. I marked them as I read because they inspired me. Maybe your students will respond to them too 🙂
"Friendship. Solidarity. Fair play. That’s what the Olympic torch stood for, and if we held fast to that, I was sure we could beat back the coming darkness together." (p. 335)
"I had just watched Jesse Owens fly farther than any other man on earth, and I was ready to fly too." (p. 60)
With the weight of the world on him, Jesse Owens, was an Olympic champion. Without that weight, he was out of this world. (p. 60)
Used this book in your classroom? Tell us how in the comments!
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