The Enemy: Detroit, 1954

Read this book in Granite’s OverDrive Digital Library

Written by Sara Holbrook n/a

The Enemy is a book about twelve-year-old Marjorie Campbell. She’s living through 1954, and worse– sixth-grade drama. When a new girl named Inga who says she’s from Canada but barely speaks English transfers into her class and gets assigned to share a desk with her, she struggles with teaching her new friend Inga to read, dealing with her discriminating best friends, hiding censored books, and living with a brother that isn’t actually hers. Through all the tumult and the strife in her life along with the daily news reports about Communist attacks, Marjorie fights to stay calm and not get arrested.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. The plot was engaging and the characters well developed. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off the pages for too long and caught myself worrying about the characters a surprising amount of times. The book was slow paced at first, but the mysteries in the story that held fast onto reader’s hearts held fast onto mine.
This book would be ideal for most junior high students. The book is easy to read with rich language and characters that wormed into your heart. The main character, Marjorie, is highly intelligent and relatable- from disliking her siblings to wanting to please her friends. This novel would not, however, be suitable for younger readers due to infrequent mild cursing that might make a few younger readers uncomfortable. It uses several racist insults and also uses negative stereotypes against some of the characters.

Review by Avaa Hosseini, Student, Evergreen Junior High
Rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)
Interest Level: 7th Grade and Up

The Enemy
Written by Sara Holbrook
Calkins Creek, an imprint of Highlights
256 pages
Release Date: March 7, 2017
A review copy was provided by the publisher.

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