With living survivors seen through the eyes of a contemporary teen, the Holocaust is made present even through the...
A 19-year-old’s firsthand account of the war-crimes trial of a guard at Auschwitz/Birkenau.
In 2015, a Canadian university student witnessed the war-crimes trial of Oskar Groening. Lebowitz, that student and the granddaughter of survivors, has partnered with Kacer (I Am Not a Number, 2016), herself the daughter of survivors, to give her account. Jordana joins a group of Canadian Auschwitz survivors traveling to Germany to testify. Facing 94-year-old Groening, Jordana’s new friends describe the cattle cars and the selections that separated them from family members headed for gas chambers and the crematoria. One witness, a survivor of Josef Mengele’s twin experiments, testifies to the medical experimentation to which she was subjected as a 6-year-old. Groening, tried not for firsthand murder but for enabling the Nazi death machine, is a prime example of the banality of evil. To Jordana’s surprise, she meets many Germans dedicated to correcting the sins of the past, including a tour guide who explains, “my generation…want[s] to take responsibility for our country’s past”—a good lesson to model for readers from other countries, perhaps. Kacer has reconstructed testimony from news articles and interviews, footnoting sources throughout; the telling is straightforward, relying on content for its impact.
With living survivors seen through the eyes of a contemporary teen, the Holocaust is made present even through the uninspiring prose; 72 years after the liberation of the death camps, this immediacy is vital. (epilogue, author’s note by Kacer) (Nonfiction. 11-15)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77260-040-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If only Benedict Arnold had died sooner. Had he been killed at the Battle of Saratoga, he’d be one of the greatest heroes of American history, and “we’d celebrate his life as one of the best action stories we have.” Instead, he survived and went on to betray the colonies and die in shame. Sheinkin sees Arnold as America’s “original action hero” and succeeds in writing a brilliant, fast-paced biography that reads like an adventure novel. Opening with the hanging of Major Andre, the British officer who plotted with Arnold to turn West Point over to the British, the story sticks to the exciting illustrative scenes of Arnold’s career—the invasion of Canada, assembling America’s first naval fleet, the Battle of Valcour Island, the Battle of Saratoga and the plot with Andre, whose parallel narrative ends in a bungled mission, his execution and Arnold’s dishonor. The author’s obvious mastery of his material, lively prose and abundant use of eyewitness accounts make this one of the most exciting biographies young readers will find. (source notes, quotation notes, maps [not seen]) (Biography. 11-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-486-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
Tricked out with a ribbon, foil highlights on the jacket and portrait galleries at each chapter’s head by Ireland’s leading illustrator, this handsome package offers British readers an orgy of self-congratulatory historical highlights. These are borne along on a tide of invented epithets (“ ‘Foreigners!’ spat Boudicca”), fictive sound bites (“Down with the Committee of Safety!”) and homiletic observations (“By beating Napoléon the British showed how strong they were when they worked together”). Aside from occasional stumbles like the slave trade or the Irish potato famine, Britain’s history—from the Magna Carta to the dissolution of the biggest empire “there had ever been”—unfolds as a steady trot toward ever-broader religious toleration, voting rights and personal freedom. American audiences will likely be surprised to see Mary Queen of Scots characterized as “one of the most famous of all monarchs,” and the Revolutionary War get scarcely more play than the Charge of the Light Brigade. It makes a grand tale, though, even when strict accuracy sometimes takes a back seat to truthiness. Includes timelines, lists of monarchs and an index but no source lists. (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5122-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
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