The greatest treasure hunt in history: The story of the Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel

I was just going to skim this, thinking that at over 300 pages it was just too long for middle grade, let alone teen. But I couldn't put it down and now it's back on my order list.

I was aware of the Nazi looting of art treasures, but this is a whole new perspective on it, starting with the recruitment of the Monuments Men from artists, museum curators, architects, and others and plunging them almost immediately into a seemingly impossible task; protect and repair thousands of damaged monuments, museums, and art treasures in Europe. Their task was almost immediately complicated by the discovery of widespread looting by the Nazis; they even had a specific unit devoted to the theft of art treasures, including the belongings of wealthy Jewish families, and the sale and destruction of modern art, deemed "degenerate."

Edsel meticulously traces the work of a handful of men and one woman, French curator Rose Valland, on their trek across Europe. Like detectives, they traced the journey of various treasures while at the same time struggling to protect surviving monasteries, statues, museums, and other cultural treasures. Throughout the book there are sketches and letters from the soldiers, reflections on how and why they did what they did, explorations of the art itself, and a careful tracing of how the Monuments Men fit into the wider theater of war.

An extensive bibliography, credits, and notes, and glossary are included. At the end, the author reflects "is art worth a life?" circling back to the reasons the Monuments Men, many of whom were past military age and volunteered and several who died on their missions, chose to protect the treasures not only of the nations conquered by the Nazis but also those allied with them and Germany itself.

Verdict: Nonfiction on World War II is almost always popular, and although this initially seemed too obscure a topic to interest young readers, Edsel's reflections on art and war and the copious original documents, in addition to the framing of the story as a mystery or treasure hunt, make this something that I think will appeal to history buffs after all. Perhaps not for every collection, but I can see this circulation enough to make it worth the purchase.

ISBN: 9781338251197; Published January 2019 by Scholastic; Borrowed from another library in my consortium