Category Archives: Historical

Review: My Name is Hamburger by Jacqueline Jules

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My Name is Hamburger by Jacqueline Jules

My Name is Hamburger
Jacqueline Jules
Kar-Ben Publishing
Published October

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About My Name is Hamburger

Trudie Hamburger is the only Jewish kid living in the small southern town of Colburn in 1962. Nobody else at her school has a father who speaks with a German accent or a last name that means chopped meat. Trudie doesn’t want to be the girl who cries when Daniel Reynolds teases her. Or the girl who hides in the library to avoid singing Christian songs in music class.

She doesn’t want to be different. But over the course of a few pivotal months, as Trudie confronts her fears and embraces what she loves–including things that make her different from her classmates–she finally finds a way to say her name with pride.

My Review

I recently read another historical novel in verse by this same publisher (not on purpose, just the way things worked out). It looks like they primarily publish picture books with a few middle grade titles. Another novel I read earlier this year, THE PRINCE OF STEEL PIER, is also by Kar-Ben Publishing.

I really enjoyed MY NAME IS HAMBURGER. Some historical events are hinted at but kept really within what a ten year-old would ask or understand, which I also really liked. I absolutely adored Trudie. She’s driven and smart, but she has such a big heart, too. I especially loved her friendship with Jack and the way that she began to think differently about the way kids spoke to her and treated her because she saw it from the outside. It also gave her courage to stand up not only for herself but someone else, too.

I felt like this book had really deep characters. Like, Trudie’s parents were both super different, and had obvious strengths and weaknesses. Each character was really well-developed. I’m always blown away by that in a novel-in-verse because there are so few words on the page. It’s amazing to me when authors deliver such rich characters in a story with so few words. It’s so cool.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading MY NAME IS HAMBURGER. I loved the small town and all the relationships between people. I loved Trudie’s strength and courage and her love for others. This is a great book for fans of Jacqueline Woodson or Tricia Springstubb.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Trudie and her family are Jewish. Her dad came to America as a child to escape Nazi Germany. His family was not able to escape and did not survive. A new boy at school and his family are Korean Americans.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Kids in Trudie’s class make racist comments about her and about a Korean American boy who joins her class. They comment on her facial features, belittle her intelligence, or say she’s only smart because she’s Jewish. She’s excluded from a school music class because she objects to Christian songs, and the principal felt it wasn’t fair for them to change the program for one student. There are no slurs spoken or written in the text.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Trudie looks forward to Shabbos with her family and especially the prayers with her dad. She attends a synagogue and enjoys services there.

Violent Content
Other kids make racist comments or bully Trudie for being Jewish. A boy kicks her ankle as she walks past and makes cruel comments. A man is injured in a fall.

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 MY NAME IS HAMBURGER in exchange for my honest review.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Top 10 Books for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Friday, January 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that date in 1945, the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated. Some of the stories listed here share the lives of some of those who were imprisoned there. Some were imprisoned at other camps. Still others fled their homes in Europe in an attempt to escape the Nazis.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is “freebie”, so I’ve chosen to share some of the books I’ve read or that are still on my reading list that feature stories based on historical events or family history. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl in which bloggers share their top ten book choices. Here are mine for this week.

10 Books to Read for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz: A True Story Retold for Young Readers by Jeremy Dronfield

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | My Review

What you need to know: The true story of two Austrian-Jewish brothers in WWII. One escapes to America. The other goes with his father into concentration camps, first Buchenwald and then Auschwitz.

Release Date: January 24, 2023

Boy From Buchenwald: The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor by Robbie Waisman with Susan McClelland

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | My Review

What you need to know: How the author and 472 other boys (including Elie Wiesel) survived imprisonment in Buchenwald and found hope when Albert Einstein and Rabbi Herschel Schacter brought them to a home for rehabilitation.

Release Date: May 11, 2021

Hedy’s Journey: The True Story of a Hungarian Girl Fleeing the Holocaust by Michelle Bisson

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | My Review

What you need to know: The story of the author’s mother and her journey through WWII Germany to escape to America.

Release Date: August 1, 2017

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

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | My Review

What you need to know: Based on the true story of a fourteen-year-old girl imprisoned in Auschwitz becomes the guardian of 8 books slipped past the guards. I enjoyed this graphic novel a lot and thought of Dita when reading another book that mentioned books in Auschwitz.

Release Date: January 3, 2023

MAUS:

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | Reviews: Book 1 . Book 2

What you need to know: A man navigates a challenging relationship with his father, a Holocaust survivor, who tells the tale of his experiences.

Release Date: November 19, 1996

28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | My Review

What you need to know: Ruthie and her family board the St. Louis to escape from Germany and the concentration camps. When they’re denied entrance to Havana, Ruthie is determined to help find a place she and her family will be safe. A novel in verse based on real historical events.

Release Date: May 1, 2021

28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | TBR

What you need to know: When she learns of plans to murder everyone living in the Warsaw Ghetto, sixteen-year-old Mira joins the resistance, holding the Ghetto for 28 days. Based on the author’s family history.

Release Date: March 14, 2014

Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | TBR

What you need to know: After fleeing to Cuba with her father, Esther writes letters to her sister, who remains in Poland with the rest of the family. She records all her experiences as she waits, desperately hoping the rest of her family will be able to make their escape from the Nazis as well. Based on the author’s family history.

Release Date: August 25, 2020

Just a Girl: A True Story of World War II

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | TBR

What you need to know: In 1938 Italy, six-year-old Lia’s life is turned upside down by war. As danger grows, Lia and her sisters hide at a convent where she grows into a young teen, waiting for the day she can be “just a girl” again. A memoir adapted for young readers.

Release Date: January 1, 1994

The Length of a String by Elissa Brent Weissman

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads | TBR

What you need to know: Imani, an adopted girl, discovers her grandmother’s diary in her search for her birth parents. In it, she discovers the story of Anna, her great grandmother, a Jewish girl who fled Nazi-occupied Luxembourg to the US where she was adopted herself.

Release Date: May 1, 2018

Have you read any books on the Holocaust or World War II?

If you have, which ones stick with you the most? Have you read any of the books on my list of ten books for International Holocaust Remembrance Day? Let me know! I would love to add more books to my reading list.

Review: Running for Shelter by Suzette Sheft

Book Review and Content, Historical, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Running for Shelter
Suzette Sheft
Amsterdam
Published November 9, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

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)

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

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

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

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.