Three children in Vienna in 1936. Max, Elsa and Leo are very close to each other and then torn apart by Hitler and his hatred of Jews. Max’s father is a senior officer and totally believes in Hitler’s ideals. But Elsa and Leo are from Jewish families.
A very moving and well written book about the lives of these three children and what happens to them and their families during World War II. Heart wrenching in the mental and physical suffering they have to go through. I recommend all read and remember.

A beautifully told heartbreaking read. This is the story of 3 friends before and during World War 2. It is so sad and it feels real and emotional. The 3 friends are the narrators and that seems to add to the sadness of their stories.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy.

A powerful and heart-breaking story of Europe in the second world war, told through the perspective of three friends.

It's Vienna in 1936 and Leo, Elsa and Max couldn't be happier. They are enjoying a perfect day together, three young friends as yet oblivious to the horrors that are in store.

While they have hints of the tensions and unease among their parents, nothing could have prepared them for their plight.

Will they be able to remain friends? Torn apart from each other, will they ever meet again? How will their experiences change them?   

A shocking and disturbing account of the horrors, cruelty and tragedy of the Second World War, as well as an exploration of the bonds of family and friendship. It is all beautifully told through the innocence of these three young friends. I didn't want to carry on reading, but couldn't stop. The situations and characters were vivid yet it was delicately handled. The author's introduction, explaining how the novel was inspired by real events, made reading this story all the more affecting and heartbreaking.

Many thanks to netgalley and the publisher for sending me the e-copy of this beautiful book.

Books about the Holocaust upset me a lot. I feel so bad for its victims, it angers me. I knew that this book was going to move me a lot. And it did. We follow these horrible events through the eyes of three different children, and because children have a more innocent and trusting way at looking at the word, it makes the reading experience even more striking. The contradictions between their hopefulness at the beginning, and the events, are just heart wrenching. It is an easy read because the writing is accessible to everyone and is so beautiful, but not a light book at all. It's necessary to read about this part of History, even more so because it is still happening with the Uyghurs in China and leaders of the world are turning a blind eye to it.
Saying I enjoyed this book would be disrespectful, for I am heartbroken by what happened and what is still happening, the feeling of helplessness - but it was so beautifully written that I could not put it down, with gripping fleshed-out characters, that I will remember it and recommend it.

An incredibly powerful and heartbreaking story that pulled me in from the first page and I don't think it will ever let me go.

Beautiful and awful and wonderful and incredibly sad. I wanted so much for a happy ending for them all, but knew I wouldn't get one.

There have been many books written about the holocaust for children and young people, but this stands out as it takes its perspective from both sides. The story begins with the friendship between three children living in Vienna, and the day out they have to celebrate Leo’s birthday. However their friendship is soon put to the test when the Nazis arrive because Leo and Elsa are Jewish, but Max is not. Going their separate ways, their fates take very different turns, but no matter what life throws at them, the ties that bind them are hard to break.

The difficult themes are not shied away from, but are treated sensitively. There is no more violence or graphic detail than is necessary to tell the story. I found Max and Leo’s stories particularly interesting. I think this is destined to become a classic.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Vienna 1936 and three friends spend the day together. It is magical day and it is captured forever with a photograph. However, two of the are Jews.
They are separated from each other and each have their own story to tell. Will any of them survive? Will they ever be together again?

The story of 3 children who are best friend in 1936 Vienna. How they see and deal with the war that puts them on opposing sides. The changes it causes to their lives, that brings them together and/or tears them apart.

Each POV has the distinct voice of each child and their view of the world. So adeptly done with the innocence and utter honesty of children. They are simultaneously esoteric and descriptive of their surroundings. Each child's story carries the same weight as we witness their evolution through their new circumstances.

How does a friendship survive amidst so much hate and injustice? How could children fight or even understand prejudice in those difficult times? How could they not be swept away by their parent's beliefs? We hold our figurative breath as we watch them grow up and apart and wait to see if they will meet again. And how that meeting will go.

Tinged with melancholy, a narrative so powerful it seeps into your soul. Absolutely captivating and gasp-worthy, there were parts I read that made my heart hurt. I can't remember how many times I teared up. How many times I stopped to think of the truths, some quite harsh, about human nature riddled through the text. But through all the ugliness of prejudice, hope still blooms. Kindness can shine through brutality. Love, any kind of love, is the strongest force in the universe.

Then the thing you were expecting, probably hoping for happens, in such a profound and unbelievable way you might sit and stare at the page in shock as I did. Then you will want to scream, cry, smile all at the same time and realize that this story will haunt you for a very long time.

An engaging story which examines the differences between the experiences of Jews and non-Jews in Vienna as it comes under Hitler’s rule. The voices of the three children, Leo, Elsa and Max, try to make sense of the situations they find themselves in. A book which is harrowing and heartbreaking, but also shows some positivity and serves as a reminder that the horrors of the Holocaust must never be forgotten. This book is a great way to help foster understanding and debate for today’s young people.

A beautifully written story that broke my heart. When The World Was Ours tells the story of three friends whose lives suddenly take different paths when the war begins. It made me think - about the horrors of the Holocaust, the impact it had on so many lives, but also about the families and friendships so heavily changed and torn apart by the cruel actions of others. 

I’ll remember this book for a long time and will share it with my friends and family. Absolutely stunning book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Three young friends - Max, Elsa and Leo - spend the perfect day together in Vienna, utterly unaware that Europe is descending into darkness. Events soon tear them apart, taking them across Germany, Poland, Prague and London. Will they find their way back to one another - will they even want to after what they endure?

Elsa and Leo are Jewish and we see two different sides to the persecution and dehumanising that the Nazis inflicted. Leo manages to escape to England with his mother and eventually settles down, however it’s clouded with worry for his friends and his father who was taken from them. Elsa, on the other hand, is in the thick of it. We watch her being thrown from her home and denied the right to go to school, being unable to simply buy food or keep her possessions, transported to labour camps and how at Aushwitz, she becomes nothing more than the number stamped on her skeletal arm. Both of their points of view are engaging and saddening but Elsa’s really strikes a chord as we see precisely what goes on.
Max is the son of a rising SS officer. He is quick to fall into the rhythm of the “Nazi mindset” and mistreatment of others for his own gain. We see moments of self-doubt and the concern that changes happened so quickly - his friends weren’t stinky or disgusting, but suddenly they are now he realises that they’re Jewish. We also see him swept away with the Hitler Youth and how the young boys were conditioned to enjoy hurting Jewish people and be desperate to fight for their leader. It’s important that we saw this because in Nazi Germany, the children were force fed propaganda and encouraged into this new way of thinking - they were the backbone for the Nazis to ensure their plans were followed through (as seen with the Nazis adapting the school curriculum).

I do like Kassler’s approach in ensuring all of the horrors the Jewish faced in WW2 were included. It’s important to know how they were persecuted for nothing more than their faith, how children were turned against each other and how those of Jewish faith were treated worse than animals - how they had their humanity stripped from them. I also liked how Kassler had characters questioning themselves - is this the right thing to do, why is this suddenly the case. It’s easy to brush off what happened if you are unaware of the horrors people were forced through and this book is definitely a good step forward in ensuring people take note.
My only criticism of the book would be that the POVs switch. Sometimes they’re in first and other times they’re in third person. It’s fine between the different characters but sometimes we’re seeing Leo in first person and seeing things through his eyes, and then we’re suddenly in third person. This could maybe be refined?

Overall, When The World Was Ours is a harrowing and emotional book that depicts the tragedies, hardships and blatant abuse that took place in Nazi Germany.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thank you again to NetGalley and to Simon and Schuster UK for a copy of this book.

A thought provoking and important book in these times. I would urge everyone with children to read this with them. Heart breaking story of growing up and the different paths life can take us.

I am still thinking about this book weeks after reading it.

This was a difficult, emotional read. The idea was good, with the 3 children beginning the story as best friends, but finding themselves then separated by the war, and heading into very different circumstances, depending on their families and experiences.

I struggled a little with who the book was aimed at. The style is very accessible, and it feels at the start as if it's written for children of around 8-12 years old, especially the way the friendships are written about. However, as the book develops the content is really very unsettling at times (as is to be expected with this subject) and as the children grew older, I felt it was more suited to an older reader. It's really important to share this side of history with children, yet there were moments I felt were very scary for younger readers, leaving it better perhaps for an early teen audience.

The story is is all the more moving when you realise some aspects within the book are based on the author's own family experiences. It isn't really a book you can say you enjoyed, and personally I found it quite hard-going (it's not really lockdown reading...) but it's well written and tells an important story.

What an incredibly moving book, and one that describes a part of history that all the youth of today should be made aware of. What makes it more moving is knowing that Liz Kessler's family went through this ordeal themselves during the Second World War.
Highly recommended

When The World was Ours begins in Vienna in 1936. It is Leo’s ninth birthday and together with best friends Elsa and Max he is enjoying the best day ever, riding the Ferris wheel and looking forward to his mother’s infamous sachertorte. Young carefree and full of exuberance, this is a day that will forever be etched on their memories, a photograph taken by Leo’s father the only physical reminder they will have of their friendship. As the storm clouds gather over Europe and war becomes an ever closer frightening possibility, this friendship is tested to the extreme. Two of them are Jewish and one is the son of a rising star within Hitler’s regime so it is no surprise their friendship is cruelly torn apart as their lives take different paths. Taking the reader from Vienna to Prague to England and Poland this is a heart rending account of the impact of war and the Holocaust not only upon their families but their friendship too. Will it stand the test of time, the miles apart and the loss of their innocence or will their individual experiences change them all beyond recognition thus creating a permanent divide?

What could have more impact than a story told of the unimaginable horrors and losses of war through the eyes of three innocent children. Their beautiful friendship, even after their innocence has been well and truly buried, is the shining light in all the darkness that guides them through their separate experiences of life during WW2. These three have a special bond that turns a blind eye towards their different religions, never passes judgment and encapsulates the purity of childhood. Despite their separation and the passage of time, the memory of one glorious day when the world was theirs is forever imprinted on their hearts and minds. Whilst they can be stripped bare of everything they hold so dear absolutely nothing can taint this. Reading their individual stories will touch your heart in a way that no other subject can ever come close to. It is a storyline that plays havoc with your own heart and mind, since your mind (if you’re an older reader like me) knows what is on the horizon for Leo,Elsa and Max. However your brain doesn’t want to compute the horrors and truths ahead and your heart is already splintering into pieces at the thought of the pain, suffering and sorrow that beckon. But whilst this storyline is laden down with despair, there too is hope for survival, for escape and for love to conquer all.

Never has the saying ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ ever been so meaningful as the author uses her words so simply and eloquently to educate and inform younger readers of a time in history that can never ever be forgotten, helping them to visualise the destruction, the desolation, the losses, the love and the hope. Kessler has such an important lesson to impart to younger generations of the futility of war and the extent of social injustice amid an uprise in fascism across Europe. She recognises the duty we have to pass stories like these onto future generations so that the lives of the children and families as depicted here remain etched on souls forevermore. Although written in a style suitable for a younger audience, the impact of the storyline is in no way lessened and with such memorable characters the author has opened the door for parents, teachers and children to hold meaningful discussions around this period of history.

Even if you’re an older reader who has read much relating to this subject, you cannot fail to be moved by the intensity of emotion this storyline provokes, as you follow Leo, Elsa and Max and their immediate families through their individual experiences of war. Upon reading the final page, with the tears flowing freely, I turned to my nineteen year old daughter who is by no means a lover of reading and implored her to pick up this book. I think this short but poignant and powerful novel should become a must read for younger readers as they are introduced to the ideologies of people around the world who seek to inflict harm and impose their extremist beliefs upon others. When The World Was Ours surely deserves a place amongst wartime classics such as Private Peaceful and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas to name but two. My thanks as always to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read.

Although the subject matter of When the world was ours is well documented in both fiction and factual books the approach that Kessler takes is new. Three childhood friends, three journeys and three countries. By viewing the horrors of the Nazi holocaust through the eyes of Elsa, Leo and Max you see the horror unfold through the eyes of the naïve as they are both shielded and corrupted by the adults around them. There is pain, joy and loss as the children emerge into adulthood constricted by the choices that their parents have made. The small details of the recurring photographic image, a chocolate cake and a shared bond are deftly weaved throughout the stories. Readers may see echos of The boy in the striped pyjamas and some aspects are a little too 'neat', but this book is very much deserving of it's place on your bookshelf as a text to introduce the subject of the holocaust to teenage readers.

This book. Wow. Just wow.
It’s incredible, well thought out and really makes your chest hurt with anguish. It’s really remarkable, although from the get go I kind of had a feeling how this would go. It’s still a really good book to read. I highly recommend it.

I just finished this book and i am feeling so many things that I am trying to formulate into words. This book is incredibly important, it’s not necessarily an easy read but it’s an important read and it’s a lesson beyond a YA audience. This book tells the tale of 3 children; Leo, Elsa and Max, all 3 experiencing a different side of war, a different fight, a different pain. This book is beautifully written, particularly Elsa’s story, a girl I adored so strongly that I don’t think I will ever forget her, this book isn’t gratuitous but you feel the fear, the horror and the despair on the page, it’s very well written how you can see it all without it being explicitly graphic.
This book is powerful and devastating and I just can’t stop thinking about it, about these 3 children and the different paths life forced them down. This book will haunt you - we must never forget these stories and this book is a profound telling of it.

I did not really want to read this because stories of the holocaust are so harrowing - there is even a warning at the beginning of the book that the contents may be upsetting. Following in the tradition of The Book Thief and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, it tells the story of young German people caught up in the dreadful days of the Second World War. It is based on a true story. Young adults reading this, if they have no knowledge of the Nazi regime during the war, may be very shocked. It is well written and will be a success. We should never forget.