All of Us by Katrina Nannestad

Title: All of Us

Author: Katrina Nannestad

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: HarperCollins Australia

Published: 27th October 2026

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 368

Price: $24.99

Synopsis: A new heart-wrenching, well-researched historical novel for middle-grade readers.

‘The weirdest thing,’ continues Tove, ‘is that I don’t feel any different to the rest of you.’

‘That’s because you’re not!’ snaps Birgitte. ‘You’re Danish.’

‘So why do the Nazis hate me and not you?’

When twelve-year-old Viggo and his friends Finn, Tove, Birgitte and Konrad start writing rude letters to Hitler, it’s just a game. But soon, they find themselves writing an underground newspaper, their words inspiring people all over Copenhagen to commit small acts of defiance.

Then news leaks of the Nazis’ plans to round up all of Denmark’s Jews in a single night. It’s time for one huge act of defiance. Can Viggo and his friends work together to save Tove? Can an entire population work together to save their Jews?

From multi-award-winning Australian author Katrina Nannestad comes a high-stakes yet heart-warming novel full of bravery, kindness … and the power of pocket mice.

~*~

Denmark, 1943. The Nazis have control, like many other places in Europe, but there are rumblings of resistance everywhere. Twelve-year-old Viggo and his friends, Birgitte, Tove, Konrad and Finn are tired of Hitler and the Gestapo taking everything good and leaving them with nothing. So they start writing rude letters to Hitler. It starts out as a game that evolves into an underground newspaper. Their goal: inspire people all over Copenhagen to perform small acts of defiance right in the face of the occupying force.

All is going well. Jars of Justice are being used. People are knitting scratchy pieces and leaving them everywhere. Children are refusing to go into shops for the Nazis. And people are telling the longest, most boring stories they can think of when they are stopped. It’s all well and good, until they find out the devastating news. The Nazis are planning a lightning round up of Copenhagen’s Jews. Which includes lovely Tove.

The entire town and country get together to hide and smuggle their Jewish population to safety. In a huge operation, Viggo and his friends will help the Resistance get the message out, but will it be enough?

In her latest World War Two novel, Katrina Nannestad takes us to World War Two Denmark, specifically to Copenhagen and shows what the Danish Resistance did through the eyes of children. It’s powerful, and shows what people power can do, and what it means when people work together in quiet yet creative ways. The story is of course based on research but the acts of small defiance, the newspaper and the code they come up with are fictional.

Yet they hold great meaning and show what children can come up with. What they can create and do. One voice might be small, but as Viggo and his friends show, it is the coming together of these voices and small acts that make things work. That show that everyone is a tin soldier in this fight against Big Claus. We are all tin soldiers is a refrain amongst those working together.

Poor Konrad hates the Nazis, yet his father is one. His acts mean much more in this instance, and how he ends up helping holds greater power as well. What they all do has great meaning. Yet it meant more for Konrad because he would have been in grave danger had his father found out. The friends, and Birgitte’s twin siblings, Astrid and Anton really made the novel. It is their innocence that shapes things, and the twins were adorable. They definitely had their place, with the mice and in certain scenes that were hilarious but held a gravitas that only the older kids and adults, and the readers can grasp.

It’s a dangerous world, and the only reason its not worse is because the people of Denmark stood with their Jewish friends. They resisted, and they did whatever they had to do. I heard Katrina talk about this on an episode of Your Kid’s Next read, and listening to that and reading the author’s note makes you see this book as more than what it is.

Each of her books tackles a different piece of history in World War Two, stories that we may not have heard of. All are told through the eyes of children. I think this makes us see war differently, as a shattering of innocence. It’s powerful because we get to see how the war affected these characters, and what it means to cling to hope and want to see things change in your lifetime. I loved these characters, because they were loyal to each other and determined to carry on with their small acts of defiance. It is these small acts that really sow the grit and courage of Viggo and his friends.

I found  this story buzzed along, and like other Katrina Nannestad books in this genre, I was hooked, and hoped it would have a good ending, an ending that gave us hope. The historical fiction books are definitely her best, I think. They hold hope, tragedy, gravitas and everything in between in them and are perfect for middle grade to young adult readers and beyond to read about war and experience it through the experiences of people we may not hear about in the main historical record.

Another great Katrina Nannestad book.