Significant historical acts and events are here put into unique perspective by a participant.
A posthumous Holocaust memoir from the youngest person on Oskar Schindler’s list.
Completed before his death in January 2013, Leyson’s narrative opens with glowing but not falsely idyllic childhood memories of growing up surrounded by friends and relatives in the Polish village of Narewka and then the less intimate but still, to him, marvelous city of Kraków. The Nazi occupation brought waves of persecution and forced removals to first a ghetto and then a labor camp—but since his father, a machinist, worked at the enamelware factory that Schindler opportunistically bought, 14-year-old “Leib” (who was so short he had to stand on the titular box to work), his mother and two of his four older siblings were eventually brought into the fold. Along with harrowing but not lurid accounts of extreme privation and casual brutality, the author recalls encounters with the quietly kind and heroic Schindler on the way to the war’s end, years spent at a displaced-persons facility in Germany and, at last, emigration to the United States. Leyson tacks just a quick sketch of his adult life and career onto the end and closes by explaining how he came to break his long silence about his experiences. Family photos (and a picture of the famous list with the author’s name highlighted) add further personal touches to this vivid, dramatic account.
Significant historical acts and events are here put into unique perspective by a participant. (Memoir. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9781-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
An enlightening account full of compelling stories of survival and perseverance. Pair this with Karen Hesse’s fictional...
A little-known story from World War II shows the unique role played by a small group of military personal and native civilians in a remote region of the county.
The role of Alaska in World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor is not often told. “Decades after World War II, the U. S. government kept the documents about the Japanese invasion of Alaska classified, and the Americans who were there when it happened didn’t want to talk about it.” The Pearl Harbor attack left the western coast vulnerable, and the decision-making concerning defense of the Alaska’s Aleutian Islands revealed many military, geographic and social issues. Problems included unpredictable foggy weather at a time of limited satellite technology and what to do about the Aleutian islanders, who had never been away from their isolated homes. The story illuminates the cultural differences between the American and Japanese cultures at that time as well as the reluctance of the U.S. government to treat the native Alaskans as full citizens. The narrative is full of details, and there are times when it is difficult to follow all the threads. Fortunately, the text is supported by many photographs of those involved. Maps, including a strategic military map, increase the level of specificity.
An enlightening account full of compelling stories of survival and perseverance. Pair this with Karen Hesse’s fictional account, Aleutian Sparrow (2003). (sources, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-29654-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
A colorful but superficial ooze of anthropology, with a few drops of biology mixed in.
An irreverent if anemic survey of the red stuff’s roles in human culture, from Galen to the Twilight series.
The information is presented beneath drippy red borders and splattered with both jokey cartoon illustrations and graphic-novel style episodes featuring a hoodie-clad researcher who hooks up with a hot young vampire. Kyi’s report opens with a slashing overview of early medical theories about the circulatory system and closes with superficial speculations about why The Hunger Games and news stories about violent crimes are so popular. In between, it strings together generalities about blood rites in cultures from Matausa to our own Armed Forces and religions from Roman Catholicism to Santeria. The author also takes stabs at blood-based foods, the use of blood (particularly menstrual blood) in magic and modern forensic science, medical bloodletting, hereditary hemophilia in Europe’s ruling class, vampirism, and other topics in the same vein. But readers seeking at least a basic transfusion of information about blood’s physical functions or component elements will come away empty. Moreover, the trickle of specific facts doesn’t extend to, for instance, naming the site of a prehistoric sacrifice stone on which traces of gore have been found or even, despite repeated reference to blood types, actually identifying—much less discussing—them.
A colorful but superficial ooze of anthropology, with a few drops of biology mixed in. (further reading, sources, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)Pub Date: June 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55451-385-7
Page Count: 126
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
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