As a young Russian girl during WW II, Wassiljewa endured starvation, illness, and back-breaking labor at the hands of the Nazis. Her memories, recounted in journal form, make for an awkwardly engrossing, heart-wrenching tale. Living in Wyritza at the time, a small vacation town only 60 kilometers from Leningrad, Wassiljewa recalls the Nazis' black tanks grinding down the dirt road. No food was available; her family and their neighbors were left by the invaders to starve. As a 13-year-old, she traveled many miles on foot and traded what was left of her family's possessions for corn. They fended off hunger for awhile, but were powerless to prevent the death of Wassiljewa's ill father, or her deportation to Germany as a ``forced laborer.'' The picture of German society during wartime is chilling: German citizens accepted slave labor as their due, and most ignored the hunger that kept Wassiljewa and her fellow prisoners weak and sick. After the antiseptic, televised images of Desert Storm, readers will be shocked by the cruelty and inhumanity Wassiljewa endured. Throughout the entire nightmare, however, her heart remained a young girl's, and she tenderly recounts the friendships and first love that she found in the work camps. Vivid prose makes palpable the euphoria at the war's end, as well as the overwhelming love she felt when she was reunited with her mother and sister. A harrowing, uplifting story. (Memoir. 10+)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-590-13446-9
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
Beautiful and important.
When Death tells a story, you pay attention.
Liesel Meminger is a young girl growing up outside of Munich in Nazi Germany, and Death tells her story as “an attempt—a flying jump of an attempt—to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.” When her foster father helps her learn to read and she discovers the power of words, Liesel begins stealing books from Nazi book burnings and the mayor’s wife’s library. As she becomes a better reader, she becomes a writer, writing a book about her life in such a miserable time. Liesel’s experiences move Death to say, “I am haunted by humans.” How could the human race be “so ugly and so glorious” at the same time? This big, expansive novel is a leisurely working out of fate, of seemingly chance encounters and events that ultimately touch, like dominoes as they collide. The writing is elegant, philosophical and moving. Even at its length, it’s a work to read slowly and savor.
Beautiful and important. (Fiction. 12+)Pub Date: March 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83100-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
