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Summary and Reviews of My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young (Pennypacker)

My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young (Pennypacker)

My Enemy's Cradle

by Sara Young (Pennypacker)
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Readers' Rating (6):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 14, 2008, 384 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Oct 2008, 384 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, My Enemy's Cradle keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.

Cyrla's neighbors have begun to whisper.

Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father's custody—or taken away. A note is left under the mat. The neighbors know that Cyrla, sent from Poland for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won't be safe there for long.

And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn—Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims?

Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, My Enemy's Cradle keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

My Enemy's Cradle is a good read, though there are plot elements and character interactions that may strike some as unrealistic. However, these portions do gain credibility by virtue of the unnatural setting and extreme time in which they take place. Risky decisions, compromise and relationships – both forbidden and convenient – during the German occupation are part of Cyrla's story, as they are part of World War II history...continued

Full Review (562 words)

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(Reviewed by Stacey Brownlie).

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Beyond the Book



Sara Young previously has published seven children's book under the pen name Sara Pennypacker, including the Stuart series and the Clementine series. Before becoming an author, she was a painter. She lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. For more about her, please see the interview at BookBrowse.


Lebensborn (Fount of Life), founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1935, was originally set up to provide maternity homes and financial assistance to wives of the SS and unmarried ...

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Read-Alikes

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