Ellie counted the days on the kitchen calendar. October 2nd was a Saturday. Twenty-one days until Jimmy had to go. That was a long time. Maybe the war would be over by then. But the days slipped by as fast as the trees shed their leaves. And the war didn't end. Ellie hates the stars proudly displayed in her neighbours' windows: a blue one for every man gone to serve in the war, a gold one for every man who will never return. She doesn't want a star – all she wants is for her big brother Jimmy to stay safely at home. But then Jimmy is called up, and Ellie can only desperately hope that his star never turns gold. "You won't find a better novel to paint a picture of family life and woes during World War Two" - Lovereading4kids

Set amid the Great Depression and World War II, a young man and a young woman from two completely different worlds meet only twice before they start writing to each other during the war. The letters bring romance, but the atrocities of war change the gentle man . Will he be the man she falls in love with and, together, can they erase the painful memories of the war that still haunt him? The coal mining towns and steel mills of Southwestern Pennsylvania provide the backdrop for this love story that spans almost a century, from the 1920s into 2010. Take a ride as young Rudy hot rods with his grandfather's horse and buggy and wins the heart of his beloved Lois, as they grow into the man and woman they were meant to become. Follow their footsteps and watch the divine Potter at work, gently turning the clay on His potter's wheel, forming vessels full of love and warmth, hope and passion, as these two young people overcome their differences and start making history of their own.

Topics include: the influence of Leni Riefenstahl; negro soldiers; depicting Vietnam in films. Films examined include: Sergeant York, Air force, Saving Private Ryan, The thin red line.

Documents the true story of a U.S. Navy destroyer that inspired the writings of John Ford and Herman Wouk, drawing on the journals and other writings of five shipmates who witnessed the Anzio attacks and D-Day invasion.

Fifty years ago, a young girl opened a cardboard box in her basement. Long forgotten, it contained her father's World War II uniform, vintage photos, semaphore flags, and other WWII keepsakes. The box opened up a world of pain and joy to author Barbara Eymann Mohrman as she set out on a personal journey to trace her family history and inadvertently, unspoken Eymann family secrets. This is the story of hard-scrabble life in rural Oakdale, Nebraska (population 851) starting in the heyday of the 1920s. Chriss Eymann, a newly arrived Swiss immigrant and his wife, Hattie Mae, raised ten children on the Dust Bowl-ravaged plains during the 1930s in the depths of the Great Depression. But their greatest sacrifice was yet to come-when they sent four young sons off to war in the South Pacific and Europe. The mother's flag with its four blue stars proudly displayed the family's precious contribution to the war effort. The story traces in detail and vintage photos from 1930 to 1947 the anguish, danger, and their everlasting hope with some surprising family news that brings the story full circle.

This novel is dedicated to all the brave men and women who fought and died during World War II. It is a wonderful recreation of that critical time in the struggle against Fascism. The reader feels he is there back in 1944. Mark David Johnson, in his late teen, keeps a diary of his observations and feelings of that yearfrom battles in the Pacific, to D-Day, and the Battle of the Bulge in Europe. He and his family experience an awakening about their heritage and their ability to face danger with courage. The lessons they learn fit as much to our critical times as they did in 1944.