Queen of Hearts by Colleen Oakes

Interest Level: Young Adult
Reading Level: 5.4
Lexile: 840L
Genre: Fairy Tale Fantasy

Finished the book

Before Alice falls down the whole and before there is a Queen of Hearts, there is a princess. All that Princess Dinah wants is her father's approval and a future with the man she loves. But her father does not want to relinquish his crown. An exciting tale you find yourself reading just one more chapter in hopes of seeing a glimpse of a character that might turn into one of the characters from the classic tale. I highly recommend this book.

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

Interest Level: 11th grade to Adult
Reading Level: NR
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Finished the book

The lives of three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens. Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager acting as a courier for the underground resistance movement, is catch and sent to Ravensbruck, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. There she meets Herta Oberheuser a young ambitious German doctor who performs unspeakable experimental surgeries. Their story crosses continents from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland. Kasia meets Caroline Ferriday a New York socialite. Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten. A powerful novel this book made me cry. A must read so that we, the human race, never repeat the horrors of the holocaust again.