The Girl in The Blue Coat

The Girl in The Blue Coat, written by Monica Hesse, is an outstanding book for teens and adults. Though the premise for the story is about the Holocaust, it is not the same as any others you have read.  This novel takes place in 1943 German occupied Amsterdam.  It is a touching sweet plot about how the teenagers there became engrossed in helping the underground and rescuing their Jewish neighbors as the Nazis overtook their country and brought the war to their doorstep.

Hanneke is only sixteen when her boyfriend is killed fighting the encroaching German army.  She leaves school and takes a job working for the local undertaker.  Her main tasks are secretarial, but on the side he asks Hanneke to deliver some black market goods to different clients around the city.  She never shares this part of her responsibilities with her parents. But then one of her customers, Mrs. Janssen asks her not for coffee, cigarettes, or nylons but to help her find Mirjam, a missing Jewish 15-year-old girl in a blue coat who seems to have disappeared into thin air.

As Hanneke tries to locate the girl, she realizes there are people her age, some of whom she went to school with, who are doing even more dangerous tasks to help the Jewish people being taken away from the city.  Her eyes are opened to the horrors of what is happening around her and they want her help.

She gets more involved as she tries to find out what happened to the girl in the blue coat. She also starts to get involved in helping others in the Dutch resistance.  She is awed by what some of the other teens are doing and she realizes there is no room for selfish behavior and looking away.

This is a beautiful coming of age story. An unforgettable novel about the war and how a young Dutch girl’s life-changing decision to find a missing Jewish girl affects her and the people around her.  Well researched and wonderfully written, the book is a nonstop reading experience about  the horrors and intense realities of the Holocaust from a different perspective.  

Watching Hanneke grow up and find her voice and her inner strength.  Hanneke's handling of moral decisions and responsibilities keep the reader emotionally engaged in this page turner.