The Girl In The Blue Coat

By: Monica Hesse
Location: FIC HES
Genre: Holocaust- Historical Fiction


An unforgettable story of bravery, grief, and love in impossible times.

The missing girl is Jewish. I need you to find her before the Nazis do. 

I have heard of a few stories first hand of those that resisted in Holland. My friends father was 13 during the war, he shifted to New Zealand as soon as he could after it. He was a bread delivery boy with a basket at the front of his bike full of yummy dutch bread- and resistance pamphlets hidden underneath. One day he was riding his bike to deliver 'bread" and a german plane flew low overhead- it scarred him so much he drove his bike off the road, he fell off and the bread tumbled out of the basket. the pamphlets flew out of the basket  in the opposite direction before he could react. He jumped on his bike and peddled as fast as he could to somewhere, anywhere- he stuck to the bread rolls after that! He was 13!!!

Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion.

On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person--a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.
Meticulously researched, intricately plotted, and beautifully written, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary, gripping novel from a bright new voice in historical fiction.