Hosenfeld wrote, “I always see the person in front of me and a boundless compassion overcomes me”; this work is a fitting...
The first biography in English of a conflicted, quietly heroic German officer stationed in Warsaw during World War II who saved dozens of people from the Nazis.
Wilm Hosenfeld kept a journal and wrote copious letters home both during the war years and, later, as a Soviet prisoner of war. These became the foundation for this young readers’ edition, translated from the German, of a work for adults. Through excerpts of his writing, readers gain an appreciation of Hosenfeld’s opinions of German conduct in Warsaw. Avoiding any whitewashing, Hosenfeld is shown in all his nationalist fervor but also as a decent man who had a basic respect for all his fellow beings and one increasingly appalled by Nazi policies; the occupation “has degenerated into excessive, inhuman, mass slaughter contrary to the ideals of a cultured nation...the inhuman treatment can never be justified,” he wrote. What he couldn’t put in his journal was the aid he rendered to dozens of Jewish and non-Jewish victims of Nazi tyranny, most famously Wladyslaw Szpilman, subject of the movie “The Pianist.” In 2009, Hosenfeld was named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Solid writing and photographs throughout bring the story of this complex individual to life.
Hosenfeld wrote, “I always see the person in front of me and a boundless compassion overcomes me”; this work is a fitting tribute. (map, glossary, character list, timeline, resources, index) (Biography. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59572-759-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Star Bright
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
This deeply personal and boldly political offering inspires and ignites.
Curator, author, and activist Drew shares her journey as an artist and the lessons she has learned along the way.
Drew uses her own story to show how deeply intertwined activism and the arts can be. Her choices in college were largely overshadowed by financial need, but a paid summer internship at the Studio Museum in Harlem became a formative experience that led her to major in art history. The black artists who got her interested in the field were conspicuously absent in the college curriculum, however, as was faculty support, so she turned her frustration into action by starting her own blog to boost the work of black artists. After college, Drew’s work in several arts organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, only deepened her commitment to making the art world more accessible to people of color and other marginalized groups, such as people with disabilities, and widening the scope of who is welcomed there. Drew narrates deeply personal experiences of frustration, triumph, progress, learning, and sometimes-uncomfortable growth in a conversational tone that draws readers in, showing how her specific lens enabled her to accomplish the work she has done but ultimately inviting readers to add their own contributions, however small, to both art and protest.
This deeply personal and boldly political offering inspires and ignites. (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09518-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Clearly written, with heart and integrity, but lacking in substance: tasty but not very filling.
Melian, a chef, activist, and former Test Kitchen Manager at Bon Appétit, begins this brief memoir by recounting clearing out the freezer and finding and eating one last helping of her mother’s signature fish dish following her death.
Sharing this precious meal with her brother connected them emotionally and physically with their mother one last time. In other vignettes, she ties her love of food to her happy childhood in Argentina; memories of cooking with her cousins at her abuela’s house and, in particular, her abuela’s ravioles de seso; the revelation of a sidewalk vendor’s hot pretzel that she ate following her arrival in New York City to explore a new path after studying journalism in Buenos Aires; and the physical and mental strength she developed after going into business to sell her empanadas. Melian briefly alludes to her work bringing free food education to inner-city public schools, but the stories she shares here are overall more personal and primal—food as sustenance, not as a vehicle for social justice—which feels like a missed opportunity. She also references in passing the difficulties of being a woman in a male-dominated industry where being Latina and speaking English with an accent affected how she was treated. Each of the individual anecdotes stands alone, without a narrative arc connecting them, but the descriptions of food are rich in sensory detail.
Clearly written, with heart and integrity, but lacking in substance: tasty but not very filling. (Memoir. 12-18)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-22349-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
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