Item - Shadow of the Swastika

Most children's books about the Holocaust tend to be rather heavy-handed with their morality - the Nazis are evil and those fighting them are good. Even though the world just doesn't work that way in real life, this book falls into that seemingly impossible-to-avoid trap. But what more can you expect from a CYOA book?

Your character is a German orphan who was taken in by a Jewish baker in Vienna. The year is 1938 and the Germans have just annexed Austria. Jewish-owned shops and businesses are being looted and burned. Of course you must do something to stop the chaos and save the world or there wouldn't be a story at all.

Doug Wilhelm is actually an OK writer and he does a better job with this plot than I expected. Although it doesn't have many choices or endings and the story has been done countless times before, this is not by any means a bad book.

I guess it's just about average. It doesn't have any spectacularly bad pratfalls but it doesn't manage to transcend its top-heavy plot, either.

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