Keep Smiling Through

Kay is in the fifth grade growing up during the years of the second world war. Her stepmother is ultra-nasty, hateful, bitter, and mistreats Kay all the time. Her father doesn't stand up for her at all, and her life overall is pretty rough.

This doesn't count the problems she has at school, where her living in the countryside sort of puts her out of the in-city school kids cliques. Nothing she does satisfies her step-mother or almost anyone else, for that matter.

Things get more difficult when she finds out her Uncle is talking to a guy who is giving out pro-Nazi pamphlets. She has to figure out what is the right thing to do, although doing the right thing is no guarantee of acceptance or absence of punishment.

This is a somewhat different book for Ann Rinaldi, as it's not based on any famous historical personage. The book is still pretty good, although there are too many references to radio shows of he time, almost as if the author consulted a book on the subject and wanted to use as many references to the shows as possible, when fewer would have done just as well.

It is interesting how many of Rinaldi's novels involve a mother/step-mother who is really, really nasty.

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