Allies

• Genre: Fiction; young adult historical
• Originally Published: 2019
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 780L; grades 6-10
• Structure/Length: 57 chapters and author’s note; approx. 288 pages; approx. 6 hours, 17 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: The novel follows teen Dee Carpenter, a soldier from Philadelphia, and five other young characters as each tries to survive D-Day, the historic World War II Ally invasion of German-occupied France in 1944.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Wartime violence; death

Alan Gratz, Author

• Bio: Born 1972; holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee; currently lives in the mountains of North Carolina; member of the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame; awarded the National Jewish Book Award, the Young Hoosier Book Award, and the Malka Penn Award for Human Rights Honor (2017) for his novel Refugee
• Other Works: Prisoner B-3087 (2013); Projekt 1065 (2016); Refugee (2017); Ground Zero (2021); Two Degrees (2022)
• Awards: Amazon.com Best Books of the Year (2019); TIME for Kids Recommended Books (2019)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• 1940s Discrimination Through Different Lenses
• Parents’ Impacts on Their Adolescent Children
• Solidarity as a Way of Overcoming Challenges

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the geographical and historical contexts of the Allied invasion (D-Day) that unify the narrators of this novel.