Reviewed by Tiffany Ferrell for Readers' Favorite

In No Time To Play, we are introduced to a teenager named Mitzi. Her family was taken from her when Germany marched into Austria. Mitzi’s parents were heavily interrogated because her brother Ferdinand was a member of the Resistance. He had fled the country in 1938, when Mitzi was still a child, shortly before Anschluss to avoid prison or being sent to a camp. In 1939 Mitzi 's Jewish best friend disappeared in the night along with most of the other people of Jewish descent, leaving Mitzi with a haunted outlook on what was to come. After the Anschluss, the Nazi party closed down the Catholic school Mitzi had attended and at fourteen she had to learn a trade, eventually getting a job at the post office where she oversaw a group of men who managed the parcels coming in and out of Graz. During this time her father passed away and she had to leave the safety of her mother's home to work. She lived close to her Aunt Adelita, who happened to be good friends with her manager Rudy. She is fully introduced into the Resistance when she is asked to accompany two youngsters across the border into Switzerland. Sixteen-year-old Mitzi takes on the task of escorting these two small children in the guise of their aunt, praying they aren’t caught and the children will get past the border alive.

The fact that Henry Farley’s book is based on things his mother accomplished in her life left me speechless. What an amazing woman and an inspiration to all who will read this book. The fact that Mitzi was a real girl made the book so much more appealing to me. I wanted to hear her story. Knowing she was a living, breathing person and not some figment of someone’s imagination made it hard to stop reading. How many of us at sixteen were saving people from certain death under a Nazi regime? I think No Time To Play is an excellent book and gives us a worthy heroine that girls could look up to. It gives us a piece of history that isn't well known.

Many people associate Austria with Germany as all part of the Nazi regime. This book shows that wasn’t the case. Henry also weaves this actual event into a fictional story which makes it very easy to love and become attached to the characters. The story grabs your attention from the beginning. Some historical points that often appear in the story help those who aren’t familiar with Austrian history during the war, besides the overall run-through you get in most WWII history books or in school. After reading No Time To Play, I’m eager to read more of Mitzi’s adventures and accomplishments.