My Enemy's Cradle is author Sara Young's account of the Lebensborn, a terrifying and secretive part of Nazi history.

All of the Lebensborn centers were run by Heinrich Himmler under the slogan of "Have one baby for the Führer." There, pregnant German women and non-German Aryans who were impregnated by German soldiers were cared for during their pregnancies and birth, and then the babies were put up for adoption to good Nazi families. Near the end of the Nazi regime, the Lebensborn became places where devoted, "racially pure" Germans could procreate with German soliders in order to produce either future German soldiers or Aryan females who could eventually have babies of their own.

At the start of the novel, Cyrla, a half-Jewish young woman, is in hiding in her Dutch relatives' home. Her look-alike cousin Annika, to whom she is very close, then gets impregnated by her boyfriend, a German soldier. Cyrla's uncle, Annika's father, becomes enraged and takes her to a Lebensborn. Annika must pass numerous tests to confirm her Aryan identity in order to gain entrance into the Nazi birth center.

As the crackdown on Jews becomes harsher and signs indicate people know Cyrla is half-Jewish, several events occur that result in Cyrla going to the Lebensborn instead of Annika. Cyrla must take on her cousin's identity and try to blend in with the other women in the home. There, she finally realizes the danger of the situation and is forced to grow up in order to survive. She must decide whether to trust a young German soldier who offers his help, or find a way to escape on her own.

Cyrla is a somewhat frustrating protagonist. Although she is 21, at times she seems terribly naïve and dense. But as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, so it is impossible as a reader to really to get a feel for how much Cyrla would have known about the situation due to Nazi propaganda, and how much she could believe and discern from rumors.

Sara Young has previously written only children's books, and her background is apparent in the writing style of My Enemy's Cradle. Although the book is supposedly for adults, it seems more like a young adult novel. The prose is short, there is little description or contextualization, and several of the characters seem to have little purpose other than pushing the story forward. The ending could be described as either trite or uplifting, depending on the reader. However, these faults are overshadowed by the mature themes and historical significance. Young took on a terrifying time period and setting and created a surprisingly hopeful novel that brings necessary light to a little-known subject.

- Ashley