Middle Grade or YA Sci-Fi/ Historical Fiction set in WW2 where aliens give children telekinetic powers in order to fight Nazis. Read around 2017-2019.

[Amelie]

Read around 2017-2019. I have no memory of what the cover looked like, not even vague colours. At this point I’m half convinced it was a fever dream but here is what I can remember of the plot:

It is written in the first person perspective of a 20ish year old (I think) man who works in some capacity for the British government dealing with supernatural things because he is slightly psychic. I think his name may have started with a J and been fairly common so I’m going to call him Jack. His psychicness is explained in a flashback where he and his mother go to visit one of her friends, and on his way to a bathroom he encounters a woman with some kind of flowers (lilacs maybe?) on her in some capacity (on her hat maybe?) and she tells him to tell her sister (his mother’s friend) that she loves her or something. I think she gives him a flower which he takes back to the friend and relays the message. This upsets her because plot twist her sister died recently. Him and his mom leave and his mom is kind of like “hey could you maybe not do stuff like that?” End flashback.

He’s been sent to a small village to investigate a young boy who went missing and came back. It might be that he went missing years previously and came back the same age he was when he disappeared? But I’m not sure I might have imagined that part. Anyways, the boy’s name is Tom. I think Jack at some point talks to an old man who says that he shot Tom but a bright light happened after he pulled the trigger and when he went to look for a body there was not one there.

Jack takes Tom back to London for some reason where something happens that freaks Tom out and he makes a bunch of lightbulbs explode.

I think I’m missing a big chunk in the middle because the next scene I remember is in France which is under nazi occupation and Jack is in a movie theatre watching an illegal movie and the theatre gets raided and he gets thrown in the back of a van. I remember this part because he gets so scared that he pees himself and reading it as a child I was like hold on a second guys.

At some point we also meet the second magical child, a French girl whose name I think starts with an A? Maybe? Anyway her family are fisherpeople and their boat sank one day and she got wrapped up in the sail and drowned but now she’s back.

Tom and A can communicate telepathically I think.

The climax is when they have to interrupt or stop the nazi séance thing. I don’t have a very good memory of this scene except that the lead Nazi was wearing some kind of weird hat that may have been a wreath, and that the telepathic communication came in handy. I do not know what the nazis were hoping to achieve with the séance or why it was important that it be stopped.

The end.

Hopefully some of that rings a bell with someone because this book! Has been bothering me! For years!!!!! I read it when I was like 12 ONE TIME and it’s still stuck with me so I want to read it again but googling the plot I remember has yielded no dice.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and have a wonderful day.

[SBC]

Hi Amelie! You mention aliens in your thread title but not in your summary of what you remember - how/when do you think the aliens come into it?

[Amelie]

Hi SBC, I can’t remember if aliens are explicitly mentioned but I kind of just assumed that they were the ones taking the children because the old man who shot Tom says he saw a flash of light or something and that’s pretty common in fiction that’s about alien abductions. Also, in the scene where Tom makes the lightbulbs explode I can’t remember exactly what freaks him out but I feel like maybe he was getting a message beamed into his head from space or something? I might be confusing that with another book though. Since I can’t really remember I supposed it could be ghosts or gods or something, but the strongest feeling I get is that it’s some kind of extraterrestrial life. Anyways, thank you for your question and have a good day!

[Capn]

Hi Amelie,

Definitely a juvenile (YA or younger) book?

There's a book (which isn't yours) called Lammas Night, and it deals with similar themes... it's listed on these lists, which may overlap:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/5...

I'll keep looking, but if you want to browse, these are the lists I'd start with (I already checked "Middle Grade Psychics", but I don't think it's there). ;)

[Amelie]

Hi Capn,

Thank you for the lists, I will check them out! As for your question, I’m pretty sure it should be a juvenile book because I read it in elementary school and I got it from the library and the only section I visited in the library at that age was the juvenile section. However, I did read some older books at that age so it possible that it might be adult one but it’s less likely I think.

Have a nice day!