Invasion - Tapa dura

"When Josiah "Woody" Wedgwood enlists in the army, he is immediately sent to England to prepare for the Normandy invasion, harboring only vague ideas about the nature of war. But when he lands on the beach in France, the reality of battle hits him. "We are at the water's edge. A soldier runs past us onto the sand. Suddenly he falls to his knees and clutches his belly. As his body bends forward, I see the bullets rip into his bowed back. We move away from him. Move away from the terrible bullets." Facing terror, Woody questions what he's doing, makes desperate pleas to God, and worries about when and where to go to the bathroom. The brutal battle scenes and wartime musings are vividly told. But there's also a sense of the times, such as the naive feelings Woody has for a girl back home or the racist and xenophobic attitudes among his fellow soldiers in the 29th Infantry Division. These Myers delivers, along with his themes, subtly through Woody's matter-of-fact observations as his ragged battalion fights its way through Normandy. Woody, who is white, volunteered with hometown acquaintance (and important wartime friend) Marcus Perry, Robin Perry's grandfather in Sunrise over Fallujah (rev. 5/08) and Richard Perry's uncle in Fallen Angels (rev. 7/88). Marcus, a black soldier, faces grave danger driving a truck but doesn't participate in direct combat (although the book jacket art seems to belie this fact); in 1944, troops were segregated and menial jobs frequently relegated to black soldiers. And this was the Good War." - Betty Carter, Hornbook Magazine starred review

Booklist Starred Review
It's June 6, 1944, D-Day, and 19-year-old Josiah (Woody) Wedgewood is part of the Allied Invasion, huddled up with a group of other men against the cliffs on Omaha Beach. "We are in a killing zone," he thinks in agony, "and we are dying." All around him is a scene from hell: the beach filled with the dead and dying; more soldiers being mercilessly shot by the Germans as they attempt to land on the beach; the noise of war, shots and explosions, so loud that Woody can't hear the screams all around him. "I will never be the same again," he thinks. Myers' excellent prequel to his two other war novels, Fallen Angels (1988) and Sunrise over Fallujah (2008), charts the course of war in the month following the invasion as Woody, who tells the compelling story in his own first-person voice, and his comrades continue to fight through the countryside in pursuit of the Germans. The reader sees the fear, confusion, horror, and brutality of war through Woody's eyes. In a subplot involving Woody and his African American friend Marcus, the reader is also acquainted with the ugly segregation that was a daily fact of life during WW II. In Invasion, Meyrs has done peace an inestimable service by showing so vividly what a truly terrible idea war is.