A wrenching Holocaust story about flight, fear, and a child left alone. In 1943, Dr. Hannah Mai and her two daughters flee Lawoczne, Poland, trying to get across the Hungarian border. Minna, 17, is able to manage the brutal physical trek, but seven-year-old Malka becomes ill. Her fever and sores prompt Hannah’s gut-wrenching decision to leave Malka behind with Jews who promise to care for her. Unexpectedly abandoned, however, Malka spends four months on her own, ending up back in Poland. Occasionally she is cared for, but more often she wanders deserted ghettos alone, hiding in coal chutes and scavenging for scraps of food. Only luck and her blond (though filthy) hair keep her alive. Malka’s survival extracts a grim psychological toll. Although concentration camps are never seen, the trauma of this war is profoundly documented in the shattering reunion between Malka and Hannah, who has dared to re-enter Poland in search of her daughter. Heartbreaking historical fiction based loosely on the real Malka Mai’s life, this belongs with the best Holocaust literature. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-23984-7
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2003
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point.
After Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin.
The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. He overcomes loneliness and isolation only when he discovers another boy, Shmuel, on the other side of the camp’s fence. For months, the two meet, becoming secret best friends even though they can never play together. Although Bruno’s family corrects him, he childishly calls the camp “Out-With” and the Fuhrer “Fury.” As a literary device, it could be said to be credibly rooted in Bruno’s consistent, guileless characterization, though it’s difficult to believe in reality. The tragic story’s point of view is unique: the corrosive effect of brutality on Nazi family life as seen through the eyes of a naïf. Some will believe that the fable form, in which the illogical may serve the objective of moral instruction, succeeds in Boyne’s narrative; others will believe it was the wrong choice.
Certain to provoke controversy and difficult to see as a book for children, who could easily miss the painful point. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-75106-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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