Under the Java Moon

By: Heather B. Moore

Narrated by: Bianca Amato

Based on a true story, this gripping WWII novel captures the resilience, hope, and courage of a Dutch family who is separated during the war when the Japanese occupy the Dutch East Indies.

Java Island, 1941.

Six-year-old Rita Vischer cowers in her family’s dug-out bomb shelter, listening to the sirens and waiting for a bomb to fall. Her charmed life on Java—living with other Dutch families—had always been peaceful, but when Holland declares war on Japan and the Japanese army invades Indonesia, Rita’s family is forced to relocate to a POW camp, and Rita must help care for her little brother, Georgie.

Mary Vischer is three months pregnant when she enters the Tjideng women’s camp with thousands of other women and children. Her husband, George, is somewhere on the Java Sea with the Dutch Navy, so she must care alone for her young children, Rita and Georgie, and her frail mother. The brutal conditions of the overcrowded camp make starvation, malaria, and dysentery a grim reality. Mary must do everything she can to keep her family alive.

George Vischer survives the bombing of his minesweeper but feels little hope floating on a small dinghy in the Java Sea. Reaching the northern tip of the Thousand Islands would be a miracle. Focusing on of the love of his life, Mary, and his two children, he battles against the sea and merciless sun. He’ll do whatever it takes to close the divide between him and his family, even if it means risking being captured by the Japanese.

Under the Java Moon highlights a little-known part of WWII history and the impact of war on Indonesia, its people, and the more than 100,000 Dutch men, women, and children who were funneled into prison camps and faced with the ultimate fight for survival.

©2023 Heather B. Moore (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

love it!

A beautiful telling of a part of a horrible time in our history from an area that we have not gotten to hear much about.

Such important history

This is an excellent book telling of a part of WWII I knew nothing about. I’m very sensitive to violence so I appreciate that the account is written in a way that understand the sadness of what happened but could still sleep. The Fischer family’s love and loyalty and that of their friends is a heartwarming example of the goodness of humanity in spite of others lack of it.

Great book.

The book was well written. Clean, no bad language. Another view of WW2 that I hadn’t read about before

Things I never knew

I lived in Java for 2 years and never heard that it was bombed, or that the Dutch were imprisoned!

I didn’t know about the Dutch trapped in Japanese concentration camps.

I loved this story with and the characters. I enjoy reading about WWII, and this was a part I didn’t know.