A significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust.
Kor and Buccieri tell the story of how Kor and her twin sister survived Auschwitz; this new edition, published posthumously following Kor’s death in 2019, includes an extensive afterword.
In 1944, when Eva and her identical twin, Miriam, were 10, their family of six was taken from their small Romanian village and sent to Auschwitz. Upon their arrival at the camp, Eva and Miriam were separated from their family, whom they never saw again. Twin children and teens arriving at Auschwitz were selected by Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, to be used as test subjects in his scientific experiments. In straightforward language the book relates the twins’ daily routines, including lab experiments and occasions on which they suffered serious brushes with death as the result of injections they were given. Many of the memories related come across as rough sketches, though some graphic details are included. Following their liberation from Auschwitz in 1945, Eva goes on to chart their path back to Romania, from there to Israel, and finally her immigration to America, where she became an outspoken advocate and organizer for Holocaust remembrance. The afterword provides more background and insight into the last decade of Kor’s life and her controversial decision to forgive the Nazis as an act of personal healing.
A significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust. (afterword, author's note, photo credits, additional resources) (Memoir. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-939100-45-0
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A welcome illumination of a historically under-appreciated art form.
Selecting 11 illustrators popular in the past decade, among them Chris Raschka, Lois Ehlert and Mo Willems, and adding postscripts to 10 he had interviewed for Ways of Telling (2002), Marcus mines the A-list, producing fascinating insights into the lives of picture-book creators and the format itself.
Organized alphabetically, each interview is preceded by a photograph and brief introduction. In contrast to the representative reproductions in the earlier title, the accompanying color insert presents process. Studies, sketches and scenes that didn’t make it are accompanied by instructive captions. The historian’s command of publishing trends, personalities, formal elements and psychology leads to customized questions, although common themes emerge. These include the power of teachers to enable artists to recognize their potential or doubt it, the role of encouraging relatives, the ways sensitive people grapple with family issues and economic or political realities and the impact of Charles Schulz and Maurice Sendak. The inclusion of Quentin Blake, Yumi Heo, Peter Sís, and Lisbeth Zwerger adds an international perspective. It is curious, though, that Marcus recycles so much from his previous book; except for Sendak’s seven-page commentary on Bumble-Ardy (2011), not much value is added. Why not a full-fledged second volume? That said, these discussions of the relationship between artists’ lives and the stories they produce, preferences regarding medium or style, and the unique confluences of circumstance, market and passion are indubitably worthwhile.
A welcome illumination of a historically under-appreciated art form. (bibliography, source notes) (Nonfiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3506-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
An uncommon (to say the least) coming-of-age, retraced with well-deserved pride but not self-aggrandizement, and as...
Selecting high and low points from his experiences as a child, college student, teacher, refugee-camp worker, amateur boxer, Rhodes scholar, Navy SEAL and worker with disabled vets, Greitens both charts his philosophical evolution and challenges young readers to think about “a better way to walk in the world.”
Revising extracts from his memoir The Heart and the Fist (2011) and recasting them into a more chronological framework, the author tells a series of adventuresome tales. These are set in locales ranging from Duke University to Oxford, from a low-income boxing club to camps in Rwanda and Croatia, from a group home for street children in Bolivia to a barracks hit by a suicide bomber in Iraq. Prefacing each chapter with a provocative “Choose Your Own Adventure”–style scenario (“What do you do?”), he describes how similar situations ultimately led him to join the military, impelled by a belief that it’s better to help and protect others from danger than to provide aid after the fact. What sets his odyssey apart from Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin’s I Am a SEAL Team Six Warrior (2012) and most other soldiers' stories is an unusual ability to spin yarns infused with not only humor and memorable lines (SEAL training’s notorious Hell Week was “the best time I never want to have again”), but cogent insights about character and making choices that don’t come across as heavy-handed advice.
An uncommon (to say the least) coming-of-age, retraced with well-deserved pride but not self-aggrandizement, and as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. (endnotes, bibliography [not seen]) (Memoir. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-86852-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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