Common Sense Media Review
By Lucinda Dyer
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Intense, inspiring story of students who defied the Nazis.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 12+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
WHITE ROSE begins almost at the story's end. Sophie Scholl, one of the leaders of White Rose, a student-led anti-Nazi resistance movement, and her brother, Hans, have been arrested for distributing leaflets calling on Germans to rise up against their government. As she's being interrogated by the Gestapo and pressured (but not tortured) to name other members of White Rose, Sophie looks back on her life before her arrest: meeting a young army officer named Fritz when she's just 17, and beginning a relationship with him; her rising anger as she watches evil spread throughout her country and her determination to do what she can to stop it; the months she was forced to spend at a government labor camp before she could be allowed to study at a university; constantly fearing that Fritz and other young men she knows will be killed in battle. In 1942, she begins studying at the University of Munich and meets the group of friends with whom she'll form White Rose. On February 18, 1943, while leaving leaflets around their university, she and Hans are seen by a janitor and reported to the Gestapo. At her trial, Sophie is unrepentant and defiant. On February 22, she and Hans are found guilty of treason.
Is It Any Good?
This intense, inspiring novel in verse traces coming of age during the Third Reich as seen through the eyes of a courageous young woman who became a hero of German resistance. However, it's sometimes unclear in White Rose what's fact and when the author is writing in a character's voice. In the author's note, Wilson writes that she studied a collection of letters to and from Sophie, Hans, and Fritz, the leaflets themselves, and paperwork from Sophie's interrogation and trial. It seems safe to assume that if the typeface changes whenever a letter is included in the text, that this is an actual letter. But when a character's words are in italics, were they actually said by Sophie, her interrogator, or the judge at her trial? Some words, particularly those from her trial, seem to be fact, while others seem to be in italics only for emphasis.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the choice Sophie made in White Rose to speak out against Hitler and the Nazis. At a time when almost everyone was too frightened to say or do anything against the government, what do you think gave Sophie and her friends the courage to actively resist the Nazi regime?
Do you think a student-led movement could right an injustice in today's world? If you and your friends could join a resistance movement, what would it be? Instead of leaflets, how would you spread the word and gain followers?
Would you betray your friends if it meant saving your own life?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Historical Fiction
- Topics : Activism , Book Characters , Family Stories ( Siblings ) , History
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Versify
- Publication date : April 2, 2019
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 12 - 18
- Number of pages : 368
- Available on : Nook, Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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