Bartali's Bicycle: The True Story of Gino Bartali, Italy's Secret Hero by Megan Hoyt (review)

Hoyt, Megan Bartali's Bicycle: The True Story of Gino Bartali, Italy's Secret Hero; illus. by Iacopo Bruno. Quill Tree, 2021 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780062908117 $17.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 5-8 yrs

By the time Germany occupied Italy during World War II, cyclist Gino Bartali was already a familiar sight, winding through villages throughout years of intense training, easily recognizable as the celebrated winner of the 1938 Tour de France. Driven to do more than win races during a period of international crisis, Bartali joined a resistance movement and turned covert courier, packing counterfeit ID papers into his hollow handlebars and delivering them to Jews desperate to flee. His high profile proved a perfect cover, since previous training routines had established a long, visible route, and his celebrity could be used as distraction as other resistance members spirited away Jews from under the noses of guards busy managing Bartali's adoring crowds. Hoyt trims many of the political particulars away from her text (Hitler appears only in a back view as "a powerful leader," and even the war is unnamed), allowing younger listeners to focus on the heroism and older listeners to cull the end matter for specifics critical to understanding Bartali's larger story. There readers learn how deeply Bartali buried his own heroics and how later testimonies from Holocaust survivors brought him belated recognition by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. Iacopo's crisp digitally colored pencil illustrations subtly incorporate muted reds and greens of the Italian flag, highlighting the patriotic service Bartali rendered to his country even as the scenes focus on speed and cunning. A timeline and resources are included; quote citations, unfortunately, are not.