The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow

Karl Stern is a skinny kid who gets bullied by his high school classmates more than he would like, but he's always been able to hide in the background of life for most part. He's living in Berlin during the reign of Hitler and the Nazis, but having been raised in a family of no practicing religion, he certainly does not consider himself a Jew. And his fair looks do not broadcast his ethnicity either, something that separates him from his younger sister and her dark features.

But it doesn't take long for the fact that he is a Jew to get him expelled from public school, beaten, and even left for homeless. For a while he still has his boxing as a refuge, but even that gets taken from him eventually. Along with his parents and his sister, he must figure out how to survive even when it becomes harder and harder to believe that the injustice against Jews won't last forever . . ..

Recommended to mature middle grade and high school readers. Here is portrayed a unique perspective of Nazi-era history. The Berlin Boxing Club was named the 2012 Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner for Teen Readers and was placed on the YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults list.

Reviewed by kate the librarian.