Excerpt from Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"This is a book I'm bringing home to my mother." I point to the first parcel wrapped in paper. "And these are the potatoes for our supper. And this is the sweater I've just picked up from mending."

"Hoe heet je?" he asks. He wants to know my name, and he's asked it in the informal, casual way, how a confident boy would ask a bucktoothed girl her name at a party, and this is good news because I'd much rather he be interested in me than the packages in my basket.

"Hanneke Bakker." I would lie, but there's no point now that we all carry mandatory identification papers. "What's your name, soldier?"

He puffs out his chest when I call him soldier. The young ones are still in love with their uniforms. When he moves, I see a flash of gold around his neck. "And what's in your locket?" I ask.

His grin falters as his hand flies to the pendant now dangling just below his collar. The locket is gold, shaped like a heart, probably containing a photograph of an apple-faced German girl who has promised to remain faithful back in Berlin. It was a gamble to ask about it, but one that always turns out well if I'm right.

"Is it a photograph of your mother? She must love you a lot to give you such a pretty necklace."

His face flushes pink as he tucks the chain back under his starched collar.

"Is it of your sister?" I press on. "Your little pet dog?" It's a difficult balance, to sound the right amount of naive. My words need to have enough innocence in them that he can't justify getting angry with me, but enough sharpness that he'd rather get rid of me than keep me here and interrogate me about what I'm carrying. "I haven't seen you before," I say. "Are you stationed on this street every day?"

"I don't have time for silly girls like you. Go home, Hanneke."

When I pedal away, my handlebars only barely shake. I was mostly telling him the truth about the packages. The first three do hold a book, a sweater, and a few potatoes. But underneath the potatoes are four coupons' worth of sausages, bought with a dead man's rations, and underneath those are lipsticks and lotions, bought with another dead man's rations, and underneath those are cigarettes and alcohol, bought with money that Mr. Kreuk, my boss, handed me this morning for just that purpose. None of it belongs to me.

Most people would say I trade in the black market, the illicit underground exchange of goods. I prefer to think of myself as a finder. I find things. I find extra potatoes, meat, and lard. In the beginning I could find sugar and chocolate, but those things have been harder recently, and I can only get them sometimes. I find tea. I find bacon. The wealthy people of Amsterdam stay plump because of me. I find the things we have been made to do without, unless you know where to look.

My last question to the soldier, about whether this street is his new post— I wish he'd answered that one. Because if he's stationed on the corner every day now, I'll have to either consider being friendly to him or change my route.

My first delivery this morning is Miss Akkerman, who lives with her grandparents in one of the old buildings down by the museums. Miss Akkerman is the lotions and lipstick. Last week it was perfume. She's one of the few women I've met who still care so much about these things, but she told me once that she's hoping her boyfriend will propose before her next birthday, and people have spent money for stranger reasons.

She answers the door with her wet hair in pins. She must have a date with Theo tonight.

"Hanneke! Come in while I get my purse." She always finds an excuse to invite me in. I think she gets bored here during the day, alone with her grandparents, who talk too loudly and smell like cabbage.

Inside the house is stuffy and dim. Miss Akkerman's grandfather sits at the breakfast table through the kitchen doorway. "Who's at the door?" he yells.

Excerpted from Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse. Copyright © 2016 by Monica Hesse. Excerpted by permission of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.