PHEEMIE'S WAR

A teenager moves toward maturity during the early days of World War II in Reynolds’ historical YA novel.

Pheemie Longworth is a student at a Catholic high school in Phoenix, Arizona, when the United States enters World War II. While her outgoing twin sister, Zella, sees the war as a chance to flirt with soldiers passing through the city, bookish Pheemie serves coffee and doughnuts out of a sense of duty, tries to balance her emotional reaction to Pearl Harbor with sympathy for her Japanese American neighbors, and dreams of being with Rafe Gonzalez, the son of her family’s housekeeper, who has gone from childhood playmate to love of her life. When Pheemie and Rafe’s relationship is discovered, they face immediate opposition from everyone. After her father pays Rafe to stay away, Pheemie goes from docile schoolgirl to rebellious prankster. She fails to reconcile with her father, a military pilot, before he leaves for the front and soon learns that the war’s challenges go beyond gasoline rationing and meatless Tuesdays. When Zella learns that one of her dalliances has died in combat, Pheemie resolves to take responsibility for her actions and demonstrate her growing maturity. The book is an engaging read; Reynolds evocatively describes a setting that sets it apart from other World War II fiction. Readers will feel that they’re on the desert roads with Pheemie and Zella when they sneak out in the family car (“Even in March, the sun beat down on harsh, desolate land, parching everything white and leaving nothing but gravel in the riverbeds”). The plot drags at times, particularly as Pheemie’s acts of rebellion devolve into pointless petulance, but the pacing comes together in the book’s final third with the arrival of a boarder, an Army wife who challenges Pheemie’s assumptions and guides her away from self-pity. The narrative incorporates the experiences of Japanese-Americans and Latines, and although they are filtered through Pheemie’s privileged understanding of her community, they bring a welcome dimension to the familiar story of war as seen through civilian eyes.

A blend of war story and coming-of-age novel sure to hold the readers’ attention.