Resist: A Story of D-Day

Resist is a middle-grade historical fiction novella written by Alan Gratz and originally published in 2019. Alan Gratz is a middle-grade author known for historically accurate and detailed portrayals of heroic children in times of war and crisis. Resist follows 12-year-old Samira on D-Day in World War II as she attempts to save her mother from being killed as a political prisoner in northern France. Samira is part of the French Resistance, and her story embodies themes related to resilience in the face of oppression, persistence through hope, and war’s devastating effects on civilians. The novella is a spin-off of Alan Gratz’s previous work, Allies. Resist is an Amazon Best Book of the Year for Children 9-12.

This guide references the 2019 Scholastic Press edition of the novella.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of physical abuse and death.

Plot Summary

Twelve-year-old Samira Zidane is a French-Algerian girl living in Normandy during World War II and the occupation by Nazi Germany. She works with her mother as part of the French Resistance, relaying messages back and forth. Her mother was taken prisoner, along with many other people, and in the process, Samira met a new companion: a dog named Cyrano. Now, Samira is awake before dawn on the morning of D-Day, one of the Allied Forces’ most important invasions that helped end the Nazi occupation. Samira hopes that the distraction of the Allied forces will give her a chance to reach her mother before she’s executed.

Samira walks down the street toward the city of Bayeux, where she believes her mother is being held. She stops when she sees a group of intoxicated Nazi soldiers come out of a tavern, walking toward her and laughing. Samira ducks into a doorway, where an older boy named Lucien is also hiding. They hope to go unnoticed, but then one of the soldiers stops to pee against the wall nearby. Samira pretends that she was coming out of her home briefly to let her dog go pee, and her quick-witted reaction fools the Nazis into letting her go. Lucien slips away, unnoticed, heading out to cut the telephone wires and prevent German intervention, while Samira heads into a cow pasture. There, she sees the parachutes of Allied forces and hears the sound of explosions all around. She sees one parachute crash into a tree and goes to help.

Samira finds the paratrooper in a tree, but it’s just a dummy with the nametag “Rupert” stitched on it and a sound box that plays gun and explosion sounds. Samira tries to take the uniform off to use it, but it falls to the ground, and the dummy explodes. Samira tells herself to be brave like her mother, and at that moment, an Allied plane crashes to the ground in front of her. Samira finds several unconscious soldiers inside, and as they wake up, one of them introduces himself as Clarke. Samira helps the soldiers find their way to the Seulles bridge, which they’ve been instructed to hold, and watches as they take down the enemy soldiers. Samira wants the soldiers to accompany her to Bayeux, but they must stay at the bridge, so Clarke gives her a dagger for protection.

Exhausted, Samira walks along a road until a procession of German vehicles forces her off to the side. None of them shoots at her, though one pretends to, and Samira realizes that she’s no longer their concern. The sun comes up, and Samira rushes to Bayeux. The city seems empty until she realizes that the soldiers she saw came from Bayeux, and all the citizens are hiding in their homes.

Samira begs for help to find the prisoners, and a woman directs her toward a hotel where they’re being held. Samira goes there and watches as two German soldiers walk her mother and several other prisoners out of the hotel toward the woods. She follows the group into the woods, where her mother spots her and yells at her in Arabic to run away. Samira finds another dummy in a tree and uses it to distract the soldiers. One of them comes over to her, and she drops the parachute on him. The soldier eventually frees himself and points his gun at Samira, but then Cyrano bites his leg, causing him to miss.

Samira climbs down the tree and finds the gun pointed at her again, but this time her mother uses a shovel to knock the soldier unconscious. Samira’s mother picks up his gun, ties both soldiers to a tree, and then thanks her daughter for her heroic efforts. Together, they head back to Bayeux, knowing that even if the war ends, much work must be done in the effort toward freedom.