Uncertain Soldier

Seventeen-year-old Erich is a prisoner of war working at a northern Alberta logging camp. Twelve-year-old Max goes to school—reluctantly—in the nearby town. The two would be unlikely friends, except that neither has anyone else to turn to. At the height of World War II, nobody wants to befriend a German.

It doesn’t matter that Erich was forced into the military by his father, or that Max was proudly born in Canada. They are both easy targets for the locals’ grief and anger against the N…