Accessible, vital, and timely.
The memoir of Holocaust survivor Gruener, who spent much of the war in hiding and has gone on to ensure it will not be forgotten.
In the 1930s, in what was then Lvov, Poland, Luncia Gamzer is born to Jewish parents. Luncia, a brown-haired, light-skinned girl, is a happy child, but when she’s 5, Germany’s invasion of Poland destroys her world. Could young Luncia have foreseen the eventual extermination of most of Lvov’s 200,000 Jews? As Gruener writes, “you can see the truth in hindsight but not as it’s happening in the moment.” Luncia’s awful wartime experiences seem almost benign compared to the horrific experiences of Jack Gruener, the boy who’d one day become her husband, which are lightly fictionalized in Prisoner B-3087 (2013), co-authored by both Grueners and Alan Gratz, who contributes the foreword to this title. She starves in a ghetto, she’s helpless while her extended family members are murdered, she starves again while hidden by family friends. When the Soviets liberate Lvov, she becomes a displaced person, trying to be normal after a childhood hiding, silent, in the dark. It doesn’t take Luncia long to relearn how to walk and talk, but that’s the easy part. This blunt, important history is less about the Holocaust itself and more about its aftermath for a traumatized refugee girl becoming a young woman in America after a multiyear wait for visas. She changes her name to Ruth, but becoming an American teenager who understands “fun” is more complicated than a name change.
Accessible, vital, and timely. (map, photographs) (Memoir. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-62745-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
At its best when the emphasis is on the skill and artistry of Mime’s most accomplished practitioner—alas, too much of the...
The legendary mime is introduced to a new generation, though not entirely successfully.
As a child, Marceau loved to silently entertain his friends, like his idol, Charlie Chaplin. During the Nazi occupation of France, Marcel and his brother took on new identities in the French Underground, where they forged documents for Jewish children and helped many to escape to Switzerland. Spielman assumes that her young audience will understand references to deportation and concentration camps; unfortunately for those that don't, her matter-of-fact tone speaks more of adventure than deadly peril. Her tone subtly changes when she lovingly describes Marceau’s training and development as a mime and his stage persona of Bip the clown, admiring his skills in the “art of silence” that won him international renown. But here too, comparisons to the Little Tramp and Pierrot may be outside readers’ frame of reference. Though the illustrations carefully complement the textual content with period details, Gauthier’s cartoon faces are all nearly identical, with only the screen image of Chaplin and Marceau’s Bip having distinctive features. A double-page spread at the conclusion provides photographs of Bip in action and is the only clear indication of Marceau’s stagecraft.
At its best when the emphasis is on the skill and artistry of Mime’s most accomplished practitioner—alas, too much of the book looks elsewhere. (Picture book/biography. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7613-3961-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Part of Sobol’s Traveling Photographer series, this useful introduction to a famous tourist destination has unexpected child...
A photographer explores the ancient Cambodian temple and modern Siem Reap looking for odd angles, surprises and reflections of today's world in the ancient carvings.
As promised, except for a few traditional postcard images, these photographs are unusual and often feature the children who sell fruit and souvenirs at the monument gates and play among the 1,000-year-old ruins. The centerpiece is a photo album of modern Cambodian life with accompanying images of ancient carvings showing similar activities. Sobol weaves a brief explanation of the Khmer Empire and their ruined temple complex into his travelogue. He visits a dance studio, where he sees students practicing traditional gestures just like those of dancers on the temple walls, and a school where youngsters learn English. At the end, these children lead Sobol past the ancient trees and stone rubble in Ta Prohm to a surprising carving, their favorite. While not quite the secret Sobol portrays, since photographs of this curious creature have been available on the Web for several years, this image is sure to appeal to child readers as much as it does to visitors.
Part of Sobol’s Traveling Photographer series, this useful introduction to a famous tourist destination has unexpected child appeal. (facts, glossary, unlabeled world map) (Nonfiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4166-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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