Common Sense Media Review
By Mary Eisenhart
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Swastika in middle school launches complex, uneasy tale.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 9+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
In the small town of Chokecherry, Colorado, everybody's known everybody else for generations, and the biggest excitement in decades comes from the discovery of possible dinosaur poop outside of town, bringing in a team of archeologists. That changes as LINKED opens with a huge, hideous swastika painted on the wall of the middle school. As some members of the community reel in shock, others hint at the town's Ku Klux Klan past, and the whole middle school gets nonstop tolerance education while more and more swastikas pop up all over campus. A student decides to fight back with a paper chain of 6 million links commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, and soon the whole school and half the internet are on board. Meanwhile, Link, perpetrator of many pranks and most popular guy in the seventh grade, is shocked to learn he's actually Jewish. Turns out his grandmother was left at a Catholic orphanage as a baby by her desperate parents in France and kept safe by nuns who hid her origin. She only recently learned the truth herself. The revelation gives him a whole different view of the swastika: "I can feel the hair on the back of my neck standing up at the sight of it. I picture Grandma, as a tiny baby, being handed over to total strangers. And never seeing her family again." So, to his family's astonishment, he starts studying for his bar mitzvah. Soon he and the paper chain have both gone viral around the world. Complications ensue.
Is It Any Good?
There are lots of relatable moments and few easy answers in this positive but unsettling tale of swastikas in a small-town middle school and the Holocaust memorial project that springs up in response. As the town grapples with the unexpected hate eruption, more surprises, revelations, and plot twists emerge, and characters see a different side of people and places they've known their whole lives. The results can be life-changing: "It seems like a million years ago that I was an ordinary kid who thought nothing was more important than some upcoming sports season and my next dumb prank with Jordan and Pouncey. I barely even noticed the scientists' kids, and Jewish was something somebody else was in places far away from Chokecherry. I'm not sure I was happier then, but my life was a lot less complicated."
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about hate speech and the hateful use of swastikas in Linked. Have you found yourself in a situation where someone you know and like says something hateful -- about someone else, or about you? How did you feel? Was there anything you could do to express that?
In Linked, an old Catholic woman discovers her origins as a Jewish baby saved from Nazis by French nuns. Do you know anyone who through DNA testing has learned that what they've always been told about their family and ancestors isn't quite correct? How do they feel about it? How do you think you would feel?
Have you ever gotten involved in a big project or event that had people from all over the world participating online? What did you do? How did you like it?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Coming of Age
- Topics : Activism , Friendship , History , School ( Middle School )
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Scholastic
- Publication date : July 20, 2021
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 8 - 12
- Number of pages : 256
- Available on : Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 29, 2025
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