Book Review: middle-grade novel The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Masterfully written, this WWII historical fiction work completes young Ada’s search for family, faith, and identity. It follows after the first novel: The War That Saved My Life. I enjoyed the mantra posed at the beginning - and again at the end: You can know all the things you like, and someday you might believe them.

Through Ada’s point of view, the reader is drawn in and cares deeply about Ada. Her self-esteem is low due to her suffering through her young life with a club foot and a mother who seemingly doesn’t care. In an unexpected turn of events provided by the war, she is given surgery to correct her foot and feels almost normal for the first time.

Based in England we learn factual information about how British lives were impacted during these years. The war brings together a group of people (and animals) including a Jewish girl from Germany. (Could she be a spy?) Ada moves from an emotional wreck, unstable, and unsure to a confident, courageous young lady.

She moves from an impoverished, crippled life to one of selfless love and giving. It’s a story that will warm your heart and stay with you long after you’ve finished it. Highly recommended for middle-grade and up.

About

I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1967. I loved to read—I was the sort of kid who would skip recess to go talk with my school librarian—but I didn’t know any writers, and I didn’t think it was the sort of job I could have. I loved chemistry, too, and I majored in chemistry in college. I was lucky, though, to go to Smith, a liberal arts school where I was encouraged to learn everything that interested me, and I took lots of writing classes, and, fortunately, a class on children’s literature taught by none other than Newbery medalist Patricia MacLachlan. She and Jane Yolen, who ran a writer’s group nearby, encouraged my very early (and very bad!) efforts.

I married my high-school sweetheart, and he started medical school.  For awhile I worked as a research chemist and wrote stories late at night and on weekends.  But I realized I really wanted to be a writer.  By the time I was pregnant with our son I was getting enough freelance and ghostwriting jobs that I could quit being a chemist. A few years later, my husband finished his training to become an eye surgeon, and we moved so he could join a practice in Bristol, Tennessee. I was pregnant with my second child, our daughter, and my first book, Ruthie’s Gift, was under contract. It was a pretty exciting time.

Now my children are mostly grown. My husband and I are still in Bristol, where we live on a 52-acre farm with an assortment of horses, a dog, and way too many cats. We love to travel, and I especially love learning about history from all over the world.  My most recent book, Fighting Words, is my eighteenth published book. I am so grateful that I get to spend my life doing what I love to do.