WAR AND MILLIE MCGONIGLE

A San Diego tween nurses grievances as war approaches.

Since her best friend moved away and Gram, her biggest fan, died, Millie’s been preoccupied with death. In the lingering aftermath of the Depression, money is tight. While Pop looks for work, her cute but sickly 7-year-old sister, “Lily the pill,” hogs Mama’s attention while Pete, 5, demands Millie’s. Worse, annoying Cousin Edna’s moved into their two-bedroom house. In her notebook, Gram’s last gift, Millie sketches dead sea life she finds along Mission Beach’s sandy spit. Gram said nothing living dies if it’s remembered. Millie’s good at remembering. After Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and war is declared, Mama works nights building bombers; Pop works days as a Navy clerk. When darkness reigns sundown to sunrise, Millie—imaginative, funny, heartened by a new friendship—is the rock Lily and Pete depend on. If the particulars of Millie’s world are unfamiliar, readers will find broader parallels to the present, compellingly conveyed. As war reshapes their lives, some seek scapegoats to blame, but Millie’s Irish American family, with their own experiences of prejudice, rejects the anti-Japanese and anti-immigrant bias taking ugly root around them. Rich, authentic detail brings setting, community, and era to resonant life, as when a neighborhood child contracts polio and parents anxiously watch their own for symptoms. With the future uncertain, Millie discovers precious, hidden beauty lies in once-monotonous daily life.

Accomplished storytelling transforms grim history into a light for dark times.