Phillip Hoose: Hi, this is Phillip Hoose, author of The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and The Churchill Club.

I got the idea for this book on a bicycle trip in Denmark in the year 2000. I went, while I was there, to the war resistors museum in Copenhagen, and I saw this little exhibit, which featured a group of boys who, according to the information in the museum, were the first resistors of German occupation in Denmark during World War II.

So anyway, I'm standing here in this museum looking at all of this, and I had never heard anything like this. So I said to the curator of the museum, "Are any of these kids still alive?" And he said, "There's one that you should talk to, and his name is Knud Pedersen." When I got home to the United States I sent an email and Knud Pedersen wrote right back and said, "Yes, I'm still alive and yes I'm still active, but unfortunately I have agreed to sell my story to another writer so I can't work with you. Thanks a lot." And that was it.

That is, for another 12 years when I was between books, and I found this old file with our email correspondence, and I wrote again. And he said, "My contract with the writer fell through; I'm free to work with you. When can you be in Denmark?" And I just looked down at my calendar and said, "October 7th." He said, "Fine; I will meet you at the airport." And he did! I got on the plane, went to Denmark, and spent a week with him, interviewing him. And that's how I got the idea, and that's the backstory for the book that we now have.

I'd like to read you just a little bit from the book. The scene that I'm about to read has to do with the formation of The Churchill Club.

"Here was the discussion I had longed for. I was thrilled to be with cathedral students," said Knud, "who felt as my brother and I did." These were guys who stayed up like us for the nightly radio broadcasts from England. The more we talked, the angrier we became. It was absurd. If you accidentally bumped into a German on the street, you were expected to strip the hat from your head, lower your eyes, and apologize profusely for disturbing a soldier of the master race. All of us had listened to them braying their idiotic folk songs in the streets. All this was outrageous! But would anyone do anything about it? Average Danes hated their occupation and occupiers, but ask them to resist and they would say, "No. It cannot be done. We will have to wait. We are not strong enough yet. It would be useless bloodshed."

The air was thick with our tobacco smoke by the time we laid the proposition on the table. "We will act! We will behave as Norwegians! We will clean the mud off the Danish flag!"