Max has been forgotten. He and the other German children have been in a Children's Evacuation Camp in Czechoslovakia for four years, waiting out the war, safe from the bombings of Berlin. But with the war nearly over, Max and his "gang" decide to make the journey to Berlin on their own - on foot, on horseback, by bicycle, truck and train, any way they can. They struggle interminably on, starving and terrified, but determined to get home. While the characters are fictional, the events in this book are based on the actual experiences of countless German children at the end of World War II.

Here are the true stories of five teenagers who did not survive the war. Five voices among the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. They died, but their words live on. Like Anne Frank, they speak across decades with voices painful and passionate, terrified but courageous in the face of the unthinkable. This is a heart-rending and inspirational book.

Francis Joseph Cassavant wanted to be a hero, just like Larry LaSalle. He went to war and found that heroism had nothing to do with it. It was all a lie. LaSalle must have known. How could he do it? How could he send other young men off to face that horror and tell them it was a glorious thing? Joseph is going to make him pay for that betrayal, pay with his life.

Nina Topic has to get out of Yugoslavia. The war has torn away her home and family. Her only hope for survival is a dangerous escape to an unknown friend of her parents in faraway England, a ghost from their past. Nina is "brave enough for anything." But is bravery enough?

" 'Do you want to die? ...Soldiers die. Before that they eat bad food and sleep on damp ground and march from dawn to dusk. Then they fight and die. Is that what you want?' I looked into the darkness. 'What else is there for me?' 'Nothing, I suppose,' he sighed. 'There was nothing else for me. You only become a soldier when there's nothing else.' " Jeremy's parents are dead. He has been cheated out of his family farm. The Americans are invading Upper Canada. Jeremy finds himself with nowhere to go - nowhere but the British Army. He is just fifteen years old.

The Jewish ghetto in the Polish town of Bedzin is a miserable place, but at least the family is together. But before long, Eva and her sister Rachel are sent to a labor camp in Czechoslovakia, starving, marching endless miles in the snow and working themselves to exhaustion and beyond in a factory producing German army uniforms. Death and despair are their constant companions, but Eva refuses to give up hope.

In Charlie's family, the men have always been sealers. At fifteen, Charlie too is desperate to "go to the ice," desperate to prove himself to his overprotective parents. Taking matters into his own hands, Charlie stows away on a ship. But he has made a serious error. The ship is not off on a sealing expedition; it is a troop ship bound for England, France, and the horrors of trench warfare in World War I. Charlie will have every opportunity to prove himself. But will he live to return to his home and family?

Copenhagen, 1940: The Nazis have invaded Denmark. When Lisa discovers that her older brother Stefan is part of the Resistance, she too is determined to join the underground campaign against the German army of occupation. At first Lisa's involvement is an exciting adventure, but gradually the violence escalates and life for Lisa and the rest of Denmark's Jews becomes increasingly precarious. Lisa and her friends become true soldiers in a desperate secret war. This is just one of Carol Matas' many gripping novels about World War II. Readers will want to continue with Jesper, Daniel's Story, In My Enemy's House, After the War, and The Garden.

Kosovo, 1993: Adem's homeland has been under Serbian power for over four years. Adem is desperate to fight back against the oppressive and abusive Serbian troops, but his people have adopted a stance of non-violent resistance. It does not protect them at all?

"I hadn't been too worried about going to Nam. From what I had heard, the fighting was just about over, anyway." Not quite. It's 1967 and Richard Perry is seventeen, just out of high school, facing a future as promising as a brick wall. Unable to fulfill his dreams of college and a writing career, he goes to Vietnam. Unbearable heat, relentless mosquitoes, rats, snakes, scorpions, and a jungle full of tense silence - until the Vietcong hit you. Perry is doing his best to stay alive, but army supply has a lot of body bags - enough for everyone.

Post traumatic stress syndrome, battle fatigue, shell shock. Through many years and many wars there have been different names for something we still don't understand: the mental anguish of soldiers who have seen and done what no one should. During the American Civil War, it was simply called "soldier's heart". Gary Paulsen traces the story of one Union soldier who joined up at fifteen, fought in most of the great battles of the war and survived them all, but paid a very great price.

1967: Lesley Shelby doesn't want to move to Israel. She certainly doesn't want to live on a kibbutz near the unsettled Jordanian border. But she has no choice: she must give up her privacy, her status, her close relationship with her parents, and the comforts of a privileged life in Canada. Then comes the Six-Day War. Lesley will never be the same.

John Dante is drowning in memories. Fifty years later his seventeenth year is still etched in his mind. It was the year he fell in love. It was the year they bombed Pearl Harbor. And, although the girl he loved begged him not to go, it was the year he went to war?

Many of those who fight in wars are too young to vote, too young to drink - but they are old enough to die. Here is a collection of stories, essays and personal narratives from young people caught up in the tragedies of many contemporary conflicts - from Nicaragua to Tienanmen Square, from Israel to Afghanistan.

British Columbia, World War II: Jed's English father is away at war, a fighter pilot. Living with his mother in her Tsimshian community, Jed is hired to work on a newly established army base in the area. But Jed's pride in helping his country is marred when his best friend Tadashi, a Japanese Canadian, is declared an "enemy alien" and sent to an internment camp. Now Jed doesn't know whose side he's on. The story continues in Caged Eagles.

War is terrible for soldiers - but what about the children? Robert Westall serves up five tales of young people touched - and irrevocably changed - by war.

Sonny saw the German plane that destroyed his family. His father joins the air force, looking for revenge. When he does not find it, the responsibility of exacting retribution falls to Sonny. Just how much will payback cost? Robert Westall is the author of several suspenseful and poignant novels of World War II, including The Machine Gunners and Kingdom by the Sea.