91 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Summer of My German Soldier", April 23, 2001
This book is very sad, but still excellent. The main character is twelve-year-old Patty Bergen, a Jewish girl growing up during World War II. She lives in a small Arkansas town, where her parents own a department store. The federal government has chosen her town as the location for a camp for Nazi prisoners of war. Although most Jewish Americans despise the Germans for what they have done to Jews in Europe, Patty regards the prisoners of war with more curiosity than hatred.
The Nazi soldiers are used to pick cotton in the fields of the rural South, and they are brought to Patty's father's store to pick out hats to protect their faces from the hot sun. Only one of them can speak English, and so he interprets for the entire group. The interpreter's name is Frederick Anton Reiker, known to his friends as Anton. Patty is present when the soldiers arrive at the store, and she waits on Anton, who wants to buy a pencil sharpener. They become friends in this short length of time.
Patty has many problems with her family. Her parents never show her any love or kindness. Her mother, who is very beautiful, is always finding faults with Patty's appearance, and her father outright hates her. She has to endure beatings and whippings from him several times. Patty has very few friends, and her closest friend is Ruth, an African-American woman hired to be the housekeeper and cook for the Bergens. Patty also loves her sister Sharon, even though Sharon receives a lot of love and attention from the girls' parents, and of course there is Anton. She isn't good friends with the other girls in their town because of the ever-present barrier of religion.
Anton manages to escape from the prisoners' camp and makes his way to Patty's home. She shelters him in a forgotten suite of rooms above the family's detached garage, and brings him food and clothing daily. During this time period, their friendship deepens. Anton witnesses one of the beatings that Patty's father was giving her, and tried to rush to her aid. When Patty is talking to him after this episode, she realizes that she has never loved her parents, particularly her father, and that they are cruel to her. However, her time with Anton can't last. He feels that he is threatening Patty's safety by staying with her, and so he leaves.
Over the next few months, Patty has to deal with many crushing losses, especially one concerning Anton. She draws strength from a ring he gave her before parting, which was his most treasured possession. She also learns to accept that her parents cannot and will never love her, but she realizes that it isn't because of her faults that her parents hate her--it is because of their pettiness and narrow-mindedness.
I recommend this book to anyone. It's really sad and will probably make you cry at some points, but the story is absorbing and very believable.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Summer of My German Soldier, December 6, 2000
By A Customer
I just read "Summer of My German Soldier", by Bette Greene. I thought that this was a really terrific book. It is the story of Patty Bergen, a Jewish girl in the South during WWII, who makes friends with a Nazi soldier. She makes friends with him because she her parents are mean to her and she wants companionship and love. This was a wonderful book with characters so real that I could feel what they were feeling and think what they were thinking. After reading "Summer of My German Soldier", I had tons of questions about the book and about the author. I wanted to know if any of it was based on a true story. I also wondered if Bette Greene's life influenced her to write the book in any way. So I did some research on the internet, and I found out that there's a webpage about the author and the book! It's at bettegreene.com and it has tons of useful and interesting information. Plus, you can email Bette Greene about her books! I recommend that you read this book and look at the website to get answers to the questions I know you'll have.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I Watched The Movie First and Than Read This Book!, May 7, 2005
A Kid's Review
Summer Of My German Soldier is an interesting book, I actually watched the movie first and than read the book. This is about Patty a 13 year old Jewish girl growing up in a small southern town during World War II and in this little rural town there is a prisioner of war camp for German POWs and Patty comes from a rotten dysfunctional home in which her cruel father is an abusive drunk who for some reason hates her and is always beating her up and her mother is an uncaring wimp who also hates her but for some reason Patty's parent's love and adore her little sister Sharon and the only love Patty gets is from the family's black housekeeper and than Patty meets an escaped German POW who it turns out was forced into the German Army and hated Hitler and she strikes up a friendship with him and he is kind to her. This is a sad but good book though I have heard that it and the movie are considered to be controversial. The book was turned into a made for TV movie in 1978 and the cast for the movie includes Kristy McNichol as Patty, Bruce Davidson as Anton the escaped POW, Ester Rolle as Ruth the housekeeper, Michael Constantine as Patty's father, Barbara Barrie as Patty's mother and Robin Lively as Patty's little sister Sharon. The movie is available on video and Amazon is offering it though I think it's out of print so you would have to look for used tapes.
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