Parents' Guide to War Games

WAR GAMES begins at the Opening Ceremonies for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Thirteen-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris is nervous and not just because she never imagined herself becoming an Olympian, it's because of the note she found pushed under her door at the Olympic Village: "If you want to take home gold, come alone to the Maiden Bridge on the Spreekanal tonight after the Opening Ceremonies. Tell no one." Evie is nothing if not adventurous and she's determined to find out what the note means. But only if she can ditch Heinz Fischer, the Youth Services Host assigned to her by the Nazis, who follows her everywhere—and has a shocking secret of his own. Ditch him she does and at the bridge she discovers the note was about a very different kind of gold. It's the millions of dollars of gold held in an underground vault of the Reichsbank (the German National Bank) and an unlikely band of robbers wants Evie to help them steal it. There's British journalist Solomon Monday, German Olympic weightlifter Karl Hühnerbein, and Ursula Diop, a diver on the French Olympic team. Evie's always played by the rules, so her immediate reaction is "no." But her family is homeless and money from the robbery would change their lives, so she reluctantly agrees. With only five days left to bring off the robbery before the Games end, there's a secret tunnel to be found, a celebrity to be impersonated, a betrayal, and life altering choices to be made.