Stepping on the Cracks

Step on a crack, break Hitler’s back! Elizabeth yells, jumping hard on the sidewalk. Her best friend Margaret follows suit. Margaret’s mother is watching the two girls from the porch. When I was your age, we said ‘Step on a crack, break your *mother’s* back.’ We tried hard not to step on the cracks. That was before Hitler, Elizabeth says. The world was different then. There’s a blue star in Margaret’s living room window, which means that her older brother Jimmy is overseas, fighting in the war Hitler started. There is one in Elizabeth’s window, too, for her her brother Joe. But the girls’ private war is with Gordy, the worst bully in sixth grade. After he and his friends tear down their tree house, Margaret and Elizabeth are determined to get even. They follow Gordy to his hideout in the woods, and stumble onto his alarming secret. It makes them more sympathetic toward the troubled boy. It also makes them question their feelings about war. Mary Downing Hahn has drawn on her memories of her own childhood during World War II to create an authentic and thought-provoking novel.