Young Fighters of the Soviets.
[Judaica] Edelstadt, Vera. Young Fighters of the Soviets. Illustrated by Florian. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944.
8vo.; color illustrations; tan cloth stamped in red; pictorial dust-jacket; near fine, with light rubbing to the lower panel and two small closed tears.
First edition. Written at the height of the Grand Alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union, Edelstadt’s book was a piece of wartime propaganda designed to stir sympathy among young American readers toward their Communist counterparts who were fighting the Nazis. The lower flap of the dust-jacket bears the header, “Uncle Same needs Your Help,” and exhorts readers to buy War Savings Stamps and bonds.
In this tale of youthful heroism, Soviet children endure hardships stoically. They gather scarce food for their hungry families; they aid the partisans with information; they keep a lookout for possible spies. Edelstadt had delighted in tales of old Russia from her immigrant mother, but derived the material in this story from her own four-month visit to pre-war Soviet Russia, the “new Russia” where she saw the well-known cities and little-known villages, visited the Caucasus and the Crimea, and took long trips on the Volga and the Black Sea. “And everywhere I met children who were eager to hear about my America and to talk about their own land.” The characters and events in her book are all products of her imagination, but “it would be a mistake to suppose that the real children of Russia are not playing a great part in the present war.” Indeed, the Germans had been publicly hanging children who were caught aiding the Soviet guerilla fighters. “In this way they hope to frighten others into submission. But the magnificent courage of these boys and girls serves as an inspiration to their people to continue the fight to free their country of the enemy.”
This was Edelstadt’s (1903- ?) only foray into political writing, and was part of Knopf’s series of Adventure Tales for Younger Readers. Her other books include Steam Shovel for Me! (1933), and two other children’s books for Knopf: Black Magic (1943) and Oceans in the Sky (1946).
A beautiful copy of a scarce title.
(#4176)
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