Rescue

Born in 1971 in Northern Utah, Jennifer A. Nielsen is a New York Times best-selling author of middle grade and young adult fiction, particularly historical fiction and fantasy. Her most well-known works include the Ascendence series (2012-2021), the Traitor’s Game series (2018-2020), and the Mark of the Thief series (2015-2017), as well as standalone novels Resistance (2018), Words on Fire (2019), and Lines of Courage (2022). She has received critical acclaim and earned several literary awards, including the 2019 Sydney Taylor Notable Book Award for Resistance and three Whitney Awards in 2018 for Resistance and The Traitor’s Game. Published in 2021, Rescue is her fourth middle grade historical novel, taking place in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. In an interview published on the Mackin Community website, Nielsen comments:

To me, there isn’t a vast difference between writing a fantasy and a historical. The main difference is that with fantasy my only limit is my imagination, and with historical I’m dealing with a world as it really existed. Otherwise, I am still writing about characters who want to do the right thing, but are up against challenges far bigger than themselves, and who think they are ordinary until difficult things happen to them—then they become heroes (Bullard, Lisa. “Jennifer A. Nielsen: Stories About Ordinary Heroes.” Mackin Community, 21 Feb. 2022).

Indeed, Nielsen’s novels generally revolve around ordinary, relatable characters thrown into extraordinary situations and faced with the necessity to survive. For instance, Meg is a young girl who is trying to navigate life under Nazi oppression until she is sent on a secret mission to rescue her father. Nielsen states that, when writing about documented time periods, she explores The Intersection of Historical Events and Individual Lives to help readers

understand that from the trenches and traumas of war, heroes are made. For that young reader who feels like they are walking in a trench of their own, unable to climb out, unable to see the world beyond the mud, how powerful it is to read the story of someone who found the courage to continue forward. So can they (Bullard).

In addition, Nielsen uses historical fiction as a means to draw parallels with issues that resonate with contemporary readers. She points out that

the wonderful part of understanding history as a circle is that once we see the patterns, we can predict the future. That should give us the courage to face the hard times. We know we will get through them because we have done it before. And it should help us prepare for the challenges ahead. We teach students history in the hope that if we learn the lessons of the past, then we will not repeat those mistakes in the future (Bullard).