Westfallen: Into the Fire

Ages 8 to 12, Grades 3 to 7

From #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants author Ann Brashares and her brother Ben Brashares comes the second book in the action-packed middle grade alternate history thriller trilogy that asks what present-day America would be like if Germany had won World War II.

Former best friends Henry, Frances, and Lukas thought they’d managed to restore history to its original path after their antics with a time-bending radio went awry. But they’re still trapped in Westfallen, the version of present-day America where the Axis won WWII, living an alternate—and much darker—version of their lives.

Henry has to work at the Home for Incurables, Lukas is on hard labor all day, and only Frances, whose parents are members of the Nazi elite, gets to go to school and move freely. And since they and their friends in 1944 destroyed the radio, they have to find cruder and ever-more-desperate ways to communicate across time. Frances uses her privilege in Westfallen to gather as much information as she can, while Henry tries to turn Lukas into a local baseball hero to save him from being sent away to a work camp.

But the deeper the three friends and their 1944 counterparts dig into how Westfallen came to be, the more they begin to attract unwanted attention from people with a vested interest in making sure this version of history becomes permanent…at any cost.

About the Author

Ann Brashares is a writer and mother of four living in New York City. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series as well as several other novels. Before becoming a novelist, she was a student of philosophy, a receptionist, an editor, a ghostwriter, and briefly, the copresident of a small media company. Before that, she grew up in Washington, DC, with her three brothers and a stunning number of weird pets. She helped her youngest brother, Ben, with his socks and shoes every morning before school until he learned to tie his own shoes himself, around ninth grade.

Ben Brashares lives with his wife and three kids in Montclair, New Jersey. He is the author of two children’s books, Being Edie Is Hard Today and The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection. He holds an MFA in creative writing and has worked at and written for several magazines, including Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal. He spent much of his youth wading through heaps of clothes in his big sister’s room looking for the family’s escape-artist tarantula, Fredricka. He may or may not have put Frederika on his sister’s head while she slept.