Pennies for Hitler

Publisher's synopsis

A companion piece to the best-selling Hitler’s Daughter, this is a story of war-torn Europe during WWII, as seen through the eyes of a young German boy Georg, who loses his family and must forget his past and who he is in order to survive.

It’s 1939, and for Georg, son of an English academic living in Germany, life is full of cream cakes and loving parents. It is also a time when his teacher measures the pupils’ heads to see which of them have the most ‘Aryan’-shaped heads. But when a university graduation ceremony turns into a pro-Nazi demonstration, Georg is smuggled out of Germany to war-torn London and then across enemy seas to Australia where he must forget his past and who he is in order to survive. Hatred is contagious, but Georg finds that kindness can be, too. Pennies for Hitler examines the life of a child during World War 2, from a different perspective.

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Jackie French

Jackie French AM is an award-winning writer, wombat negotiator, the 2014–2015 Australian Children’s Laureate and the 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. In 2016 Jackie became a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to children’s literature and her advocacy for youth literacy. She is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors and writes across all genres — from picture books, history, fantasy, ecology and sci-fi to her much loved historical fiction for a variety of age groups. ‘A book can change a child’s life. A book can change the world’ was the primary philosophy behind Jackie’s two-year term as Laureate.

Jackie was the Australian Children’s Laureate 2014–2015.

Photo by Kelly Sturgis, courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers Australia