Albany Junior High School Library

Notes

Alan Gratz
288 pages
Summary: It's 1945, and the world is in the grip of war. Hideki lives with his family on the island of Okinawa, near Japan. When WWII crashes onto his shores, Hideki is drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps to fight for the Japanese army. He is handed a grenade and a set of instructions: Don't come back until you've killed an American soldier. Ray, a young American Marine, has just landed on Okinawa. This is Ray's first-ever battle, and he doesn't know what to expect - or if he'll make it out alive. He just knows that the enemy is everywhere with ambushes and dangerous traps. But then the two of them collide in the middle of the battle and choices they make in that single instant will change everything