A Lesson in Power and Politics: Alan Gratz’s War Games

Authors

  • Sasha Joy Emporia State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62704/6qew2f68

Keywords:

Alan Gratz, 1936 Berlin Olympics, World War 2, Nazi Germany, power, race

Abstract

Alan Gratz’s 2025 novel War Games follows a 13-year-old Evie as she competes in gymnastics in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and becomes involved in a plan to rob the German central bank. Gratz explores power and politics as Evie learns the truth of the Nazi Regime, in a way that draws uncomfortable but undeniable comparisons to 2025 United States.

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Author Biography

  • Sasha Joy, Emporia State University

    Sasha Joy is a senior Bachelor of Science Secondary Education English and Spanish Language & Culture double major at Emporia State University. She has written extensively about the relationship between masculinity, authority, and fascism in Federico García Lorca’s plays, La Casa de Bernarda Alba and Bodas de Sangre and recently presented her work at the Midwest Modern Language Association Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference in Lexington, Kentucky. Sasha will graduate in December of 2026 and intends to pursue a PhD. She can be reached at sjoy@emporia.edu.

References

Kansas English, vol. 107

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Published

2026-06-30

Issue

Vol. 107 (2026)

Section

Young Adult (YA) Book Reviews

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

A Lesson in Power and Politics: Alan Gratz’s War Games. (2026). Kansas English, 107. https://doi.org/10.62704/6qew2f68