All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

What does it mean to do the right thing?  How does know what is the right thing, and how does one go about it?  Werner has a special talent with electronics, especially  with radios and signals.  He and his sister reside at a home for orphans, and he knows he will be sent to the mines when he turns sixteen.  The mines are what caused his father's death, and Werner knows he will die if he goes to the mines.

Werner takes a chance and tries to make something of himself by earning a place at an academy where young boys are trained to become "Hitler's Youth."  Because of Werner's talent for tracking radio signals and his understanding of electronics, he is soon commissioned to travel with a team that tracks illegal radio signals throughout Europe.  Werner is very good at his job, but being good at his job also brings some experiences that a boy of sixteen doesn't understand or expect.

Marie -Laure lives in Paris and loses her sight by the age of six.  Her father works in a museum and is very good at crafting model replicas. It is these replicas that help Marie-Laure learn her way around her neighborhood.  She and her father have to flee Paris when she is twelve because of the German occupation.  They have to leave the city so quickly that she must leave behind her beloved book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.  They travel to a small town in France called Saint-Malo, and that is where the lives of Werner and Marie-Laure intertwine.

When people are dying all around you, and a foreign army is occupying your country, where is the good?  Where is the light?  How can we see the beauty that is around us?  All the Light We Cannot See helps us see that the human spirit can be strong, brave, and compassionate. We can also try to atone for those terrible mistakes that we sometimes make that causes pain to others.

This book is the winner of the Pultizer Prize.  Written over a span of ten years, it has the makings of a masterpiece.