Saving Midnight

by Suzy Zail (Contributor)

From the author of The Wrong Boy, another gripping read about one boy's fight for survival during WWII. Perfect for fans of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse. Fourteen-year-old Alexander Altmann doesn't need to look at the number tattooed on his arm. A10567: he knows it by heart. He also knows that to survive Auschwitz, he has to toughen up. When he is given the job of breaking in the commander's new horse, their survival becomes intertwined. Alexander knows that the animal is scared and damaged, but he must win its trust. If he fails, they will both be killed.

288 pages, paperback

Published March 5, 2015

About the author

A Family lawyer in her past life, Suzy is now the bestselling author of more than 14 books for adults, teens and children. Suzy is best-known for her young adult novels, Inkflower, The Wrong Boy, Alexander Altmann A10567 and I am Change, stories that shine a light on injustice. She is also the founder of Give A Girl a Book, shipping more than 10,000 books (donated by school libraries and students) to girls in Africa who couldn’t otherwise afford them. Suzy's novels have won Reader's choice for Book of the Year for older readers, in the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards, been shortlisted for the Young Australians Best Book Awards and the U.K. Coventry Inspiration Book Awards and have been named an Outstanding International book by the United States Board on Books for Young People. Her books have been published in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the U.S., Canada and the U.K. and are taught in secondary school History and English. Suzy lives in Melbourne Australia.
Visit her online at suzyzail.com.au and @authorsuzyzail

Reviews

[zandrama · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know if there are an infinite number of books set during WWII or if I just chose those. My expectations was of an ordinary "guy tames difficult horse and becomes hero" kind of book. It was. And wasn't.

Well written, even though the story could have had even more depth.

[Zara Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes it did make me cry. Just another reminder of how awful people can be and how bad things were. Well written and flowed in a way that made it easy to read even though the subject was difficult.

[Hanna Rebecka · Rating 4 out of 5]

listen miss Zail, if you don’t tell me what happened to Isidor right now - we’re gonna have a problem

[Maria Tsagkari · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5*

[Rach · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel bad for eating this so low, considering the real life inspiration. But it just didn’t do it for me. A lot felt rushed.
I did enjoy that the horse related things were accurate, which is something you don’t often find. And the final note about the gentleman who the author took inspiration from was a lovely touch. Very moving

[Daisy May Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This really didn't work for me for a variety of reasons. Though it's based on a true story, and one that Zail tells us about in an extremely poignant afterword, Saving Midnight seemed to miss the mark in a lot of ways. The ending was very moving but felt rushed, and as a whole there was an oddly anticlimactic air to it all. Zail is better than this - as that moving afterword shows - but when the afterword is the most powerful part of the book, then something isn't right.