HISTORICAL FICTION: CODE NAME VERITY
HISTORICAL FICTION: CODE NAME VERITY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wein, Elizabeth. 2012. CODE NAME VERITY. New York, NY: Hyperion. ISBN: 978-1423152194.
PLOT SUMMARY
A Scottish female wireless operator known as Verity (aliases Queenie, Evie, and a variety of others) is captured by Nazis in occupied France. She reveals bits of code in exchange for relief from torture, and to postpone her imminent execution. Throughout the story, very much like Scheherezade in “One Thousand And One Nights”, Verity intricately weaves her confession in writing, telling of her friendship with Maddie, a female British pilot, and her journey to how she became a wartime wireless operator. Verity also details in her confessions her views on courage, evil, the power of friendship, and survival, and battles for her life in order to make it home alive.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Set during the early 1940s,within different countries and cultures, the young women Verity and Maddie, and other characters within the Allied and Axis powers of WWII, are identifiable and believable characters. The raw descriptions of Verity’s determination to live while being interrogated by the Gestapo, and the friendship between kindred spirits Verity and Maddi, are believable and make the characters come to life to the reader. While they are fictional, Verity and Maddie are based on real women who worked undercover for the Allied forces. Wein expertly combined human experiences and connections between the cast of characters to create relatable characters who seem lifelike. One of the most powerful sets of characters within CODE NAME the Nazi interrogators, intent on getting code and the truth out of Verity through any means possible. Through the vivid depictions of pure evil and the darkness of human nature as seen in these characters, the reader may wonder how Verity (or the woman she is based on) could survive such an ordeal.
Wein expertly weaves a plot of fiction and historical fact to create settings that are very lifelike and real. The story jumps between Verity’s stories of her and her friend Maddie before Verity was captured, and her present conditions in the Nazi interrogation cells where she hears, sees, and experiences gruesome interrogation tactics. Wein does not sugar-coat the fate of the allied men and women who were captured by the Gestapo, and the descriptions are often brutal realizations to the modern reader to what it meant to be a prisoner of war, especially as a woman.
“ That week of interrogation- after they’d starved me in the dark for most of a month, when they finally settled down to the more intricate task of picking information out of me…it was like I was being turned into a technical project… they were not doing it for fun; they were not in it for lust or pleasure or revenge; they were not bullying me… they were not angry with me. Von Linden’s young soldiers were doing their job, as indifferently and accurately as if they were taking part of a wireless set… Only, your wireless set does not shiver and weep and curse and beg for water and be sick and wipe its nose in its hair as its wires are short-circuited and cut and fried and knotted back together. It just sits there stoically being a wireless set. It doesn’t mind if you leave it tied to a chair for three days sitting in its own effluvium with an iron rail strapped upright against its spine so it can’t lean back.”
Even with her details of Verity’s daily life in the cells of the Gestapo, and her and Maddie’s training on the airfields, Wein presents the history in a way that is not overwhelming to readers, and is realistic to the time period. When Verity and Maddie both must go through training, and talk in code about flying coordinates and plane functions, Wein does so in a way that does not overtake the plot or over explain with historical details that would overwhelm the readers. Instead, she provides a basis of understanding, without becoming too technical.
Wein’s plot of CODE NAME VERITY follows Verity writing her confession in the present in her interrogation cell, but also includes her prior journey to become a wireless operator, and friends with Maddie. Finally, later in the novel, from Maddies perspective, the reader learns that Verity is missing in action and of the planned rescue of prisoners of war from the French Gestapo. Though time and place are consistently alternating, each setting is intricately and vividly described, and provides an authenticity to the story that describes in vivid detail real places in the world that were real and central during the war.
The universal themes of CODE NAME VERITY are themes that can be easily identified by readers, and are still relevant to today: the power of friendship, endurance, and courage during hard circumstances. These things have the ability to speak to readers through the powerful story.. In the author’s note concerning the historical accuracy and developing the main characters, Wein says:
“More reading ensued- okay, I could have a pilot AND a spy, and they’d both be girls. And it would be plausible. Because there were women doing these jobs. There weren’t many of them. But they were real. They worked and suffered and fought just as hard as any man. And many of them died. Bear in mind that despite my somewhat exhaustive quest for historical accuracy, this book is not meant to be a good history but rather a good story… I know there must be mistakes and inaccuracies sprinkled throughout the book, but for those I beg for a little poetic license. Some of them are conscious, some are not… Where I fail in accuracy, I hope to make up for it in plausibility.”
While developing the characters of Verity and Maddie, the author also created the atmosphere of the time period during which two women working for the Allied forces, risked their lives to stop the Nazi’s destruction upon innocent lives and upon the world. Weir has the unrelenting ability to combine all of the above literary elements to create a seamless, plausible, and riveting story that brings the people, events, and times alive to readers in a unique way. In mentioning the horrible realities that prisoners of war faced with the Nazis, and the dangers faced by captured Allied forces, Wein positively brings history to life for young adults. Wein’s reliability of bringing history to life with truth and not shying away from the dark and horrific parts of World War II, helps readers become even more empathetic and understanding of a time period and war that otherwise would have been just “history” to them.
It is clearly evident that Elizabeth Wein’s CODE NAME VERITY is carefully and thoroughly researched, through not only her novel and ability to balance both fact and fiction, but the citations, bibliography, and recommended further reading as well. In her bibliography, under specific topics, such as Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and Special Operations Executive, Wein not only offers bibliographic information concerning books, but film as well. Her further reading and bibliography could be incredibly helpful for not only educational resources, but also for readers who want to discover similar books and more resources concerning the topics mentioned in CODE NAME VERITY.
REVIEW EXCERPTS
School Library Journal:
“...This intricate tale is not for the faint of heart, and readers will be left gasping for the finish, desperate to know how it ends. With a seemingly unreliable narrator, strong friendship, wonderful historical details, and writing that fairly crackles on the page, this is an excellent book for thoughtful readers and book-discussion groups.”
Kirkus
“... And as the epigraph makes clear, there is more to this tale than is immediately apparent. The twists will lead readers to finish the last page and turn back to the beginning to see how the pieces slot perfectly, unexpectedly into place. A carefully researched, precisely written tour de force; unforgettable and wrenching.”
CONNECTIONS
Did you enjoy CODE NAME VERITY? Read the rest of the series:
Prequel: Weir, Elizabeth. THE PEARL THIEF. ISBN: 9781432843700
Book 2: Weir, Elizabeth. ROSE UNDER FIRE. ISBN:9781423183099
Awards:
Edgar Award Best for Young Adult: 2013
Golden Kite Award for Fiction: 2013
YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2013
Similar YA Books to CODE NAME VERITY
YA Fiction
Bartoletti, Susan. THE BOY WHO DARED: ISBN: 9780439680134
Grant, Michael. FRONT LINES. ISBN:9780062342157
Gratz, Alan. PROJEKT 1065. ISBN: 9780545880169
Katz, Gwen. AMONG THE RED STARS. ISBN: 9780062642745
Lasky, Kathryn. NIGHT WITCHES. ISBN: 9780545682985
Wilson, Kip. WHITE ROSE. ISBN: 9781432877743
YA NonFiction
Cornieoly, Pearl. CODE NAME PAULINE: A MEMOIR OF A WORLD WAR II SPECIAL AGENT. ISBN: 9781613744871
Mitchell, Don. THE LADY IS A SPY. ISBN: 9780545936125
DeMallie, H.R. BEHIND ENEMY LINES. ISBN: 9781402745171
Demetrios, Heather. CODE NAME BADASS. ISBN: 9781534431874
Wein, Elizabeth. A THOUSAND SISTERS. ISBN: 9780062453013
Activities:
Teen Library Book Club: Historical Fiction
Using any medium, create a new book cover for CODE NAME VERITY
Create a NETFLIX show cast of current actors who would play the characters of CODE NAME VERITY, with photos of actors from IMDB. Create the NETFLIX show poster as well, using any medium.
Create a soundtrack and/or score of songs that match the tone, theme, and time period of CODE NAME VERITY.
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