Category Archives: Historical

Review: Running for Shelter by Suzette Sheft

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Running for Shelter by Suzette Sheft

Running for Shelter
Suzette Sheft
Amsterdam
Published November 9, 2022

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About Running for Shelter

Vienna, late 1930s. Bright, red-headed Inge Eisenger leads a privileged life with her glamorous, distant mother. When forced to flee from Nazi-occupied Austria to Switzerland, Inge sees her young life turned upside down. She hopes to finally connect with her mother during their escape, but her mother soon abandons her. Vulnerable and alone, Inge makes her way to Paris before reuniting with her grandmother in Central France. But even there, Inge endures one hardship after another—all while her grandmother keeps a family secret that, if revealed, could result in their whole family’s demise.

RUNNING FOR SHELTER is written by Inge’s 15-year-old granddaughter, Suzette Sheft. The gripping, true story offers a window through which young adult readers can witness the challenges of growing up during the Holocaust. As this important chapter of history fades from living memory, Inge’s tale offers hope to a new generation who must also cultivate courage and determination in the face of personal and political challenges.

My Review

I love that the author chose this way to honor her dad, who passed away when she was thirteen, but whose interest in family history inspired her own. And to honor her grandmother, whose life story this book is based upon. What a cool tribute to them both.

Each chapter begins with a date, helping to anchor the reader in the timeline of not only the story, but also in history. The story begins in 1937 and ends in 1946, so it covers almost a decade, which is pretty much half of Inge’s life at that point.

So many people were part of Inge’s journey through the war. It was cool seeing the way communities pulled together and/or went into survival mode as war threatened them. Some scenes felt really filled out, and it was easy to imagine myself in them. Others seemed to move more quickly and left me with questions.

I was a little bit confused by the marketing of the book. It didn’t read like a nonfiction title or list sources in the way I would have expected, but the subtitle flags the story as true. The publisher lists it as a novel based on a true story, which is what it felt like reading it.

On the whole, I thought this was an intense story about a young Jewish girl’s struggle for survival in Europe during World War II. I hadn’t read anything deeply similar to Inge’s experience, so I’m glad to have broadened my understanding of that period of history.

Content Notes for Running for Shelter

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Inge Eisenger is Jewish and Austrian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
A man hired to transport Inge to France rapes her. It’s not described on scene, but the lead up is pretty harrowing.

Spiritual Content
For a long time, Inge does not know she’s Jewish as she was raised by a nonpracticing mother.

Violent Content
See sexual content. Inge learns a friend was killed by a German bomb.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of RUNNING FOR SHELTER in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman

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Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
Art Spiegelman
Pantheon Books
Published September 1992 (originally published in 1991)

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About Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began

Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spieglman’s MAUS introduced readers to Vladek Spiegleman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father’s terrifying story, and History itself. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), succeeds perfectly in shocking us out of any lingering sense of familiarity with the events described, approaching, as it does, the unspeakable through the diminutive.

This second volume, subtitled AND HERE MY TROUBLES BEGAN, moves us from the barracks of Auschwitz to the bungalows of the Catskills. Genuinely tragic and comic by turns, it attains a complexity of theme and a precision of thought new to comics and rare in any medium. MAUS ties together two powerful stories: Vladek’s harrowing tale of survival against all odds, delineating the paradox of daily life in the death camps, and the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. At every level this is the ultimate survivor’s tale – and that too of the children who somehow survive even the survivors.

My Review

I finished reading this book weeks ago, but I knew it was going to take some time to digest before I was ready to write up my review. MAUS covers a heavy topic, not only because the book introduces us to a man who survived the Holocaust and his son’s relationship with him, but also because at least one school district banned the book last year.

If you’ve followed my blog long, you probably already know my feelings about book banning— I’m generally against it. I read the article about the decision to ban MAUS and the comments by the decision-makers who decided to ban it. Mainly, they were concerned about nudity and violence.

So the nudity concern seems a bit wild to me because the characters are… mice. One page shows illustrations of naked characters. It’s because they are prisoners who’ve been stripped and forced to line up for uniforms. The drawings aren’t super detailed. There are basically U shapes for masculine private parts. Anyway.

In terms of the story– I’ve read other books about the Holocaust before. I’m not sure it ever gets less horrifying– nor should it. But there’s really something unique about reading a visual representation of the story and one that’s expressed with animal faces (mice for the Jews and cats for the Nazis). I couldn’t help but feel shocked and moved by the story.

Another thing that really impacted me was the juxtaposition of Vladek’s first-person narrative about his survival of the Holocaust next to the challenges his son Art faces in trying to navigate a relationship with him.

Should Maus Be Banned?

In terms of the violence portrayed in the book. So. I’m not a historical expert. But. The Holocaust was violent. Cruel. Shockingly awful. While I think, yeah, we don’t need to present every horror to kids in school learning the history, I don’t think it’s possible to learn about the Holocaust without some exposure to violence. MAUS II has scenes that I would categorize as violent. They’re brief. But they’re there. I didn’t read anything personally that left me feeling that readers ages twelve to fourteen should be banned from exposure to it.

I’m a little bit embarrassed that it took me so many years to read both volumes of MAUS. I am really glad I read them, though. I think they’re incredibly important stories and very well-told.

Content Notes

Content warning for genocide, brief nudity, and violence.

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Major characters are Jewish. Vladek Spiegelman is a Holocaust survivor who recounts his experiences in Auschwitz and other camps.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief nudity in a scene that shows male prisoners after they’ve been forced to strip and line up to receive prison uniforms. The drawings are specific enough to indicate that prisoners are male without being overly precise.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
References to torture and abuse of prisoners. Reference to execution of prisoners in gas chambers or by burning or shooting them.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog.

Review: 37 Days at Sea: Aboard the M.S. St. Louis, 1939

Book Review and Content, Historical, Middle Grade 8-12, Poetry, , , , , ,

37 Days at Sea: Aboard the M.S. St. Louis, 1939
Barbara Krasner
Kar-Ben Publishing
Published May 1, 2021

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About 37 Days at Sea: Aboard the M.S. St. Louis, 1939

In May 1939, nearly one thousand German-Jewish passengers boarded the M.S. St. Louis luxury liner bound for Cuba. They hoped to escape the dangers of Nazi Germany and find safety in Cuba. In this novel in verse, twelve-year-old Ruthie Arons is one of the refugees, traveling with her parents.

Ruthie misses her grandmother, who had to stay behind in Breslau, and worries when her father keeps asking for his stomach pills. But when the ship is not allowed to dock in Havana as planned―and when she and her friend Wolfie discover a Nazi on board―Ruthie must take action. In the face of hopelessness, she and her fellow passengers refuse to give up on the chance for a new life.

My Review

I think I expected this story to be more focused on the fact that Ruthie and Wolfie discover a Nazi on board and figuring out how to get him removed or something. I didn’t feel like that was really a focus for the story, though. It was certainly a cause of tension, though.

The thing that sticks with me most about 37 DAYS AT SEA is the moment when the captain learns they will not be able to dock in Havana as they’d been told before. Wolfie’s dad is on shore in Cuba, waiting for him. His mother, who is on board the ship with Ruthie and Wolfie, becomes so distraught that she can’t get out of bed or stop crying. (This is one of the most intense scenes in the book.)

I think the author does a great job presenting truths about Ruthie’s situation and the events of the time while tempering them for a young audience. Because we stay within Ruthie’s point-of-view, we are a little bit shielded from some of the harsher realities.

On the whole, though, I loved that this book brings us a well-researched novel in verse about real events. I don’t know if there are other books for children on the M.S. St. Louis and her passengers, but I loved getting to read this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Ruthie and most other characters are Jewish refugees.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Some reference to honoring religious practices.

Violent Content
Ruthie remembers the Night of Broken Glass, in which her home was ransacked. She remembers other threats against Jewish people, including the threat to send them all to concentration camps if they return to Germany.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog.

Review: The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh

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The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukranian Famine
Katherine Marsh
MacMillan
Published January 17, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Lost Year

From the author of Nowhere Boy – called “a resistance novel for our times” by The New York Times – comes a brilliant middle-grade survival story that traces a harrowing family secret back to the Holodomor, a terrible famine that devastated Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation.

But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret. Set in alternating timelines that connect the present-day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, Katherine Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor – the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, and which the Soviet government covered up for decades.

An incredibly timely, page-turning story of family, survival, and sacrifice, inspired by Marsh’s own family history, The Lost Year is perfect for fans of Ruta Sepetys’ Between Shades of Gray and Alan Gratz’s Refugee.

My Review

Stories with alternating timelines are hit or miss for me, but Katherine Marsh is an author whose books have been on my To Be Read list for a long time. That plus the Kyiv setting and rarely explored place/time in history made this book too good to pass up.

It took me a couple chapters to feel like I found my footing in the story. Matthew, our present-day main character, is chafing at the isolation and boredom of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Because his family cares for his 100-year-old great grandmother, they stay isolated from the community.

He ends up tasked with helping his great grandmother (GG) sort through some old papers and files. Through this, he discovers a family history he’d known nothing about. Two point-of-view characters from the past, cousins Mila and Helen, reveal the story of the Holodomor, the terrible famine that devastated Soviet Ukraine.

From there, I felt like the pacing of the story picked up, and the connections between the past and present helped to fuel the forward momentum of the story. Matthew’s dad is a journalist reporting on the pandemic from France. He and Matthew discuss the (awful) power of misinformation. They talk about how people can continue to believe falsehoods even as their friends and neighbors experience tragedy.

Just as in the past, Mila at first refuses to believe that her country is experiencing a preventable famine that has already killed thousands.

Conclusion

I thought the way Matthew’s relationship with GG develops and his budding interest in history and writing were really cool elements of the story. I loved that even in that, he shared a connection with Helen, his great-great-great-aunt(??) from the 1930s.

Altogether, I felt like the past and present timeline intersected at just the right moments. It shared themes that built on each other in powerful ways. I loved the introduction to a part of history that isn’t frequently explored, and the connection to the battle against misinformation we still face today.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Helen was born in America after her father emigrated here from Ukraine as a young man. Mila and Nadiya are Ukrainian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
References to celebrating Christian Orthodox holidays. Reference to the fact that religion has been outlawed in Soviet Ukraine.

Violent Content
Someone delivers a sealed envelope containing live lice to a family in an attempt to infect them with Typhus. Boys attack another boy on the playground. An older girl fights them off. Some descriptions of starvation and death. References to a man being shot.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE LOST YEAR in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Librarian of Auschwitz: The Graphic Novel by Antonio Iturbe, Salva Rubio, and Loreto Aroca

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The Librarian of Auschwitz: The Graphic Novel
Antonio Iturbe
Illustrated by Loreto Aroca
Translated by Lilit Zekulin Thwaites
Adapted by Salva Rubio
Godwin Books/MacMillan
Published January 3, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Librarian of Auschwitz: The Graphic Novel

Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this graphic novel tells the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.

Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz.

Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope.

My Review

From the very beginning, Dita is a brave, strong character. Her love for books runs from the first page to the last. She cares not only for the books during her time at Auschwitz, but also for her mother and her friends.

The illustrations in the book really bring the story to life. Several scenes got me all teared up. It was easy to feel Dita’s anguish over the death of her father and her friend. I also had chills as she acted quickly to hide books from Nazi soldiers during an inspection, an act that saved everyone in her block.

After the story finishes, there are some sections that explain more of the history and give facts about some of the important characters. I enjoyed reading that as well.

All in all, this is an incredibly inspiring story that makes me want to know more about Dita Kraus and her life. I noticed on Amazon that there’s an autobiography of her life, so I’ll probably pick that up and add it to my reading list, too.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
The book is based on Dita Kraus, a Czechoslovakian Jewish woman who was imprisoned at Auschwitz as a teenager.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Nazi soldiers call a woman a slur.

Romance/Sexual Content
A couple panels show a crowd of people stripped naked waiting for showers. The images don’t really detail private areas. One panel shows a group of women (still naked from an inspection) hugging because their lives have been spared. A group of boys tease Dita and ask to touch her breasts.

Kiss between two men.

Spiritual Content
Inside Auschwitz, Dita and others celebrate Passover.

Violent Content
Some panels show soldiers abusing prisoners by hitting them. One soldier tattoos Dita’s arm with a series of numbers. Dita hears that nearly 4,000 prisoners, many of them children, are executed. Dita hears that a man she considered a friend has died by suicide. (She’s later told this isn’t true.)

Dita is forced to carry bodies of prisoners who’ve died. One panel shows her at a distance, standing next to a pit of the dead.

Drug Content
Dita hears rumors that a man overdosed on pills and died. Some people believed it was an accidental overdose from an addiction. Others believed he died by suicide.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Eleanor, Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts by Dianne K. Salerni

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Eleanor, Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts
Dianne K. Salerni
Holiday House
Published September 1, 2020

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About Eleanor, Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts

Murderous ghosts and buried family secrets threaten young Eleanor and Alice Roosevelt in this thrilling middle-grade novel that puts a supernatural spin on alternate history.

It’s 1898 in New York City and ghosts exist among humans.

When an unusual spirit takes up residence at the Roosevelt house, thirteen-year-old Eleanor and fourteen-year-old Alice are suspicious. The cousins don’t get along, but they know something is not right. This ghost is more than a pesky nuisance. The authorities claim he’s safe to be around, even as his mischievous behavior grows stranger and more menacing. It’s almost like he wants to scare the Roosevelts out of their home – and no one seems to care!

Meanwhile, Eleanor and Alice discover a dangerous ghost in the house where Alice was born and her mother died. Is someone else haunting the family? Introverted Eleanor and unruly Alice develop an unlikely friendship as they explore the family’s dark, complicated history. It’s up to them to destroy both ghosts and come to terms with their family’s losses.

Told from alternating perspectives, thrills and chills abound in Dianne K. Salerni’s imaginative novel about a legendary family and the ghosts that haunt their secrets.

My Review

I didn’t realize when I first picked up this book that the main characters were going to be the actual historical figures, Eleanor and Alice Roosevelt. For some reason I imagined they would maybe be named after them or something else? Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise!

So the book takes place in an alternate history in which ghosts are not uncommon. They “erupt” sometimes soon after a person’s death and sometimes years later. Sometimes the ghosts have no interaction with the living, and other times they actively try to kill people. When a ghost appears, it’s classified in terms of its behavior toward others and any risk posed to the living. It’s a super fascinating idea, and I loved that it’s anchored in history by the presence of historical figures in the story (not limited to Roosevelts).

I really enjoyed both Eleanor and Alice’s points of view. Eleanor is methodical and sweet but shy. Alice is more impulsive and outspoken. At first getting along is a bit difficult for the girls, but they figure out how to work together as a growing threat from a ghost emerges.

Some of the scenes are a bit eerie, and but I thought a couple were actually frightening. A ghost attacks a group of children, saying creepy things about killing them and clearly trying to murder them. Later, a fire breaks out in someone’s home and nearly kills several people.

On the whole I wouldn’t classify the book as scary, but it does have those moments. I loved the tension as Eleanor and Alice try to find out what happened to the boy who haunts their aunt’s home. I also loved the appearances by Nellie Bly, , and Franklin Roosevelt, and Emily Spinach.

The author has included a note at the end of the book that clarifies some of the story elements which are true and where she took some artistic license. My favorite true fact was that Alice Roosevelt did indeed keep a green snake as a pet, and its name was in fact Emily Spinach.

I think this book makes a particularly fun fall read, and a wonderful way to inspire learning more about historical figures.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
The story contains ghosts, some of which are harmless, but others of which try to murder people. Several characters organize a séance to try to communicate with a ghost.

Violent Content
Some ghosts try to kill the people they interact with. In more than one scene, characters encounter such a ghost and must escape.

Drug Content
References to the fact that Eleanor’s father died due to his alcoholism.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of ELEANOR, ALICE, AND THE ROOSEVELT GHOSTS in exchange for my honest review.