Tag Archives: Holocaust

Review: Not Nothing by Gayle Forman

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Not Nothing by Gayle Foreman

Not Nothing
Gayle Forman
Aladdin
Published August 27, 2024

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About Not Nothing

“The book we all need at the time we all need it.” —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Award–winning author of The One and Only Ivan In this middle grade novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Gayle Forman, a boy who has been assigned to spend his summer volunteering at a senior living facility learns unexpected lessons that change the trajectory of his life.

To say Alex has had it rough is an understatement. His father’s gone, his mother is struggling with mental health issues, and he’s now living with an aunt and uncle who are less than excited to have him. Almost everyone treats him as though he doesn’t matter at all, like he’s nothing. So when a kid at school actually tells him he’s nothing, Alex snaps, and gets violent. Fortunately, his social worker pulls some strings and gets him a job at a nursing home for the summer rather than being sent to juvie.

There, he meets Josey, the 107-year-old Holocaust survivor who stopped bothering to talk years ago, and Maya-Jade, the granddaughter of one of the residents with an overblown sense of importance. Unlike Alex, Maya-Jade believes that people care about what she thinks, and that she can make a difference. And when Alex and Josey form an unlikely bond, with Josey confiding in him, Alex starts to believe he can make a difference—a good difference—in the world. If he can truly feel he matters, Alex may be able to finally rise to the occasion of his own life.

My Review

In some ways, this book reminded me of Tree. Table. Book., which came out earlier this year. In that story, a girl befriends an elderly neighbor and learns of her experiences during the Holocaust.

Not Nothing also depicts a close bond between a child and a Holocaust survivor. This time, though, the 107-year-old man narrates the story as if he’s telling it to his lost love, Olka.

The narrative is poignant and gentle even as it tells of hard things: a boy losing his mom when he’s placed in foster care; a family losing their business during the Nazi occupation of Poland; a man separated from his love; and a girl dealing with a parent recovering from a serious illness.

We rarely see main characters, especially in middle grade fiction, who have made terrible choices and now must face the consequences of those choices. This is a brave story that’s also a little bit unsettling. It reminds us that people aren’t one thing. It reminds us that when we judge someone by the worst mistake they’ve made, we miss so many opportunities for good things.

I really appreciated the author’s note that explains why she wrote this book and what inspired the narrative choices she makes in the text. This book offers a lot to think about. I think it also includes a cameo of one of the main characters from Frankie & Bug, also by Gayle Forman.

While this is a heavy story in some places, it’s also hopeful and brave.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Josey is a Jewish Holocaust survivor and the story’s narrator. Several minor characters are queer. Maya-Jade has two moms and is adopted. She is also Jewish. Alex is in foster care. His mom has untreated mental health issues.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
References to slurs and antisemitism/homophobia.

Romance/Sexual Content
A man and woman kiss and become engaged. A couple marries in secret.

Spiritual Content
Alex celebrates Shabbat with Maya-Jade’s family. References to other Jewish holidays and celebrations.

Violent Content
References to World War II and a brief description of the invasion of Poland, destruction of Jewish property, and increasingly oppressive laws under Nazi rule. Brief descriptions of a concentration camp.

Josey references waiting to die several times in the book.

Brief references to Alex’s home life before he was placed in foster care. (He was underweight and not well-cared for.) Brief description of a violent attack against a boy.

Drug Content
None.

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

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. Check out other blogs with posts about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle with Greg Pattridge.

Review: Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation written by Anne Frank, adapted by Ari Folman, and illustrations by David Polonsky

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Anne Frank’s Diary
Anne Frank
Adapted by Ari Folman
Illustrations by David Polonsky
Pantheon Books
Published October 2, 2018

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About Anne Frank’s Diary

A timeless story rediscovered by each new generation, The Diary of a Young Girl stands without peer. For both young readers and adults it continues to capture the remarkable spirit of Anne Frank, who for a time survived the worst horror the modern world has seen—and who remained triumphantly and heartbreakingly human throughout her ordeal.

Adapted by Ari Folman, illustrated by David Polonsky, and authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, this is the first graphic edition of The Diary and includes extensive quotation directly from the definitive edition. It remains faithful to the original, while the stunning illustrations interpret and add layers of visual meaning and immediacy to this classic work of Holocaust literature.

My Review

I read THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL for the first time this year. I’d read a play based on the diary and seen it performed while I was in school, but I hadn’t read the original text for myself until now.

One of the reasons I did is because of this graphic adaptation. (Note: the term graphic adaptation simply means it’s told in a series of images in panels, much like a comic strip, but the content is nonfiction, so it’s not a graphic novel.)

Anne Frank’s Diary Banned

ANNE FRANK’S DIARY was banned in at least one high school library in a county near me early in 2023. I read about the content that a parent objected to, but didn’t really have a grid for it since I’d never read the graphic adaptation being pulled or the original diary.

The content the parent objected to is on a two-page spread. There are three images showing Anne and her friend Jacque having a sleepover. Anne asks Jacque if they can show one another their breasts, and Jacque says no. Ann laments that she wanted very much to kiss her friend. The next page shows Anne walking through a garden of vaguely sketched nude statues with a caption that she feels ecstasy at the sight of a female body.

The content is brief and pretty vague, and Jacque even rebuffs Anne. These scenes come directly from Frank’s diary entries.

Anne Frank’s Diary: The Only Graphic Adaptation Authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation

Having read both these books so closely together, I think the graphic adaptation is faithful to the original text and the spirit of it. There were diary entries that I recognized in the graphic adaptation. Sometimes multiple scenes were combined to show one scene. Some of the illustrations show a scene at a dinner Anne describes. At other times, they present a more metaphorical interpretation of what happened. I found that I really enjoyed that combination and the way it illuminated some of the things Anne describes.

Still the Same Sparky, Brilliant Young Girl

The things that stood out to me so much in this book as with the diary itself were how young Anne is. At times, her temper and her emotions get the better of her, as they do with any of us. At other times, she writes with so much humor and depth that it’s hard to remember she was barely a teenager herself.

The man who adapted the book points out in a note at the back of the book that a famous historian once said, “more people are probably familiar with the Nazi era through the figure of Anne Frank than through any other figure of that period, except perhaps of Adolf Hitler himself.”

I had to let that sink in. And I had to think about the fact that we are now telling some high school students they can’t read this book. Or MAUS, the duology written by Art Spiegelman about his father’s life as a survivor of the Holocaust.

It’s very weird to me that there are places in which you can legally drive a car and get a job but not have access to these books at your school.

Conclusion

I’m so glad I read ANNE FRANK’S DIARY: THE GRAPHIC ADAPTATION and the original, DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL by Anne Frank. The story they tell is a pretty simple one. It’s about a girl who keeps a diary, pretending to write letters to a friend as her family faces prejudice, adversity, and ultimately, their own murders.

I really enjoyed the way the illustrations celebrated Anne’s humor and her wit. And I deeply appreciate that they show the vast range of feelings she describes in her diary. I loved the book, and I would like to check out the movie directed by the adapter of the book.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Anne, her family, and the others hiding in the Secret Annex are Jewish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Anne reports she once asked a female friend if she could see her breasts and wanted to kiss her. She says she feels “ecstasy” when seeing female bodies. She mentions speaking openly with Peter about the bodies of men and women. Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Anne’s family celebrates Hanukkah and St. Nicholas Day together.

Violent Content
Anne hears rumors of citizens being executed. She hears rumors about people taken to concentration camps and killed there. Anne worries about friends from school and others her family knew. She sometimes has a dream of them asking her for help.

Drug Content
Anne takes Valerian drops to combat feelings of anxiety and panic during her time in hiding.

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

Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation is a beautifully illustrated adaptation of the original diary telling about Anne’s years in hiding in Nazi-occupied Holland.

Review: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank

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The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition
Anne Frank
EFE Books
Published May 15, 2022

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About The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition

The Diary of a Young Girl, often known as the Anne Frank Diary, is a collection of entries from Anne Frank’s Dutch-language diary, which she recorded while a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family evacuated their house in Amsterdam and went into hiding in 1942 when Nazis occupied Holland. Anne Frank died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen detention camp in 1945 after the family was captured in 1944.

Anne Frank kept a diary throughout this time, recording vivid recollections of her events. Her tale is a fascinating commentary on human tenacity and weakness, as well as a riveting self-portrait of a sensitive and energetic young lady whose promise was sadly cut short. Miep Gies was able to retrieve the diary.

My Review

I’d been thinking that I’d read Anne Frank’s diary in school, but I don’t think that’s actually true. I know we read the play based on her diary and then went to see it performed by a local community theatre. I don’t think we read her actual diary, though.

This year, one of the books banned near me is the graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary. I would like to read that book, but wanted to read the original first, since the objection to the graphic novel seems to be that something included in it isn’t accurate to the original diary.

Some Facts I Learned from the Foreward of Diary of a Young Girl

Anne initially kept her diary for herself, but when a member of the exiled Dutch government expressed interest in personal witness accounts written during the war, Anne began editing her diary entries with the intent on publishing her writing someday.

Anne’s father put together the entries that formed the first publication of the book. He opted not to include journal entries referencing Anne’s sexuality (something not discussed at the time in young adult literature) and negative thoughts about her mom and other people she lived with in the Secret Annex.

When Anne’s father, Otto Frank, died, the diary became the property of the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, which investigated and proved the diary authentic. After that, the diary was published in its entirety.

After that, the sole heir of Otto Frank, who owned the copyrights of Anne’s diary, sought to publish a new, expanded edition of the work. This contains about thirty percent new material compared to the original publication.

She Was Thirteen

As I read the entries to Anne Frank’s diary, it struck me again and again how young she was when she wrote them. Though she intended to publish something based on her diary, we don’t have a way of knowing what she would or would not have wanted publicly known. How would she have felt about the things she wrote about her mom and sister– and even her dad– if she’d been the family member to survive the war? We will never have the chance to know.

She wrote so many insightful things, too. She wrote about the anxiety and depression of being in hiding. Her family would hear rumors of arrests, torture, and death in concentration camps. They endured nighttime bombings, knowing if any of them were injured, they couldn’t safely get medical help. And if the building in which they were hiding was destroyed, they’d have nowhere to go.

She wrote about falling in love, about growing up, and about the changes in her relationships with her family members as she grew.

Anne Frank Wanted to Be a Writer

Every life lost in the war and Holocaust is tragic, but there is something especially tragic about the loss of this young writer. Even as a teenager, she had such a gift with words. What would our world have been like if she’d been able to pursue that gift and share it with us for decades more? What would she have written about her life in hiding and about the aftermath of the war if she’d lived to tell us?

I feel like her story would be important anyway as a record of her experiences, but I’m sure what’s made it so enduring is Anne’s ability to articulate her thoughts and experiences in a way that transcends her age. Some passages in the diary are so powerfully written. And yet, in others, she reminds us that she’s an early teenager with hopes and dreams and frustrations about her family, her studies, and her relationships.

Conclusion

I’m so glad I read this book. I think Anne Frank’s story more than deserves its place of honor. This book is so much more than a teenage girl’s diary. It’s an account of a young girl forced into hiding with her family, coming of age during World War II. It’s the story of a bright young mind who finds humor in the everyday goings on around her. This is the story of a girl whose life was brutally ended far too soon.

I highly recommend reading THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL by Anne Frank if you haven’t already. I also think it would be worth rereading as an adult because I know that impacted my perspective.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Anne, her family, and the others living in the Secret Annex are Jewish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Anne uses an offensive racial term for biracial people. (She doesn’t appear to be using the term to be purposely offensive, but in the context of the language commonly used at the time.)

Romance/Sexual Content
Anne reports she once asked a female friend if she could see her breasts and wanted to kiss her. She says she feels “ecstasy” when seeing female bodies. Anne laments that her parents never spoke openly with her about sex. She mentions speaking openly with Peter about the bodies of men and women. Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Anne’s family celebrates Hanukkah and St. Nicholas Day together.

Violent Content
Anne hears rumors of citizens being executed. She hears rumors about people taken to concentration camps. Her family hears they get very little food or water, that thousands must share a single bathroom, that their heads are shaved, and that many are murdered. Anne worries about friends from school and others her family knew. She sometimes has dreams of them asking her for help.

Anne very briefly mentions that someone in her family once tried to end their life.

Drug Content
An adult drinks wine and then does not sleep well. Another adult smokes, and others tell him he should quit. Other scenes reference people drinking alcohol. Anne takes Valerian drops to combat feelings of anxiety and panic during her time in hiding.

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 DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL: THE DEFINITIVE EDITION in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Girl Who Sang by Estelle Nadel, Sammy Savos, and Bethany Strout

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The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival
Estelle Nadel
Illustrated by Sammy Savos
Edited by Bethany Strout
Roaring Brook Press
Published January 23, 2024

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About The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival

A heartrending graphic memoir about a young Jewish girl’s fight for survival in Nazi-occupied Poland, THE GIRL WHO SANG illustrates the power of a brother’s love, the kindness of strangers, and finding hope when facing the unimaginable.

Born to a Jewish family in a small Polish village, Estelle Nadel―then known as Enia Feld―was just seven years old when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. Once a vibrant child with a song for every occasion, Estelle would eventually lose her voice as, over the next five years, she would survive the deaths of their mother, father, their eldest brother and sister, and countless others.

A child at the mercy of her neighbors during a terrifying time in history, THE GIRL WHO SANG is an enthralling first-hand account of Estelle’s fight for survival during World War II. She would weather loss, betrayal, near-execution, and spend two years away from the warmth of the sun―all before the age of eleven. And once the war was over, Estelle would walk barefoot across European borders and find remnants of home in an Austrian displaced persons camp before finally crossing the Atlantic to arrive in New York City―a young woman carrying the unseen scars of war.

Beautifully rendered in bright hues with expressive, emotional characters, debut illustrator Sammy Savos masterfully brings Estelle’s story of survival during the Holocaust to a whole new generation of readers. THE GIRL WHO SANG is perfect for fans of MARCH, MAUS, and ANNE FRANK’S DIARY.

My Review

What a powerful first-hand account of survival during the Nazi occupation of Poland. In the opening pages, we meet Enia’s family and see the quiet life they live in their small town. Then, as the Nazis invade, things change. Her family must hide. Enia feels afraid. She loses so many people, but always, when she needs help, someone steps up to help her.

Some of the scenes in the book are pretty chilling. There’s one brief series of panels that shows, from a distance, soldiers lining people up against a building. In the next image, red smudges the wall of the building, and the people are shown collapsed on the ground. The viewer easily understands they’ve been shot to death.

Thinking about this tiny girl never speaking above a whisper or standing up while she was in hiding can’t help but break your heart. Thinking about her brother, who was only a few years older than she was, risking his life several times a week to look for food is also heartbreaking. I can’t begin to think about how I would process that anxiety– both from being the person going out and the person left behind. The resilience and devotedness of these siblings leaves me in awe.

I also love the decision to tell this story as a graphic memoir. Not only do the illustrations help to anchor the story in its setting, but they carefully lay out the story without needing to graphically describe some of the horrors Estelle and her family endured.

I think readers who were moved by THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ: THE GRAPHIC ADAPTATION or the graphic adaptations mentioned in the book description above will find this story equally moving and important.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Estelle (called Enia in the early pages of the book) and her family are Jewish and Polish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Enia believes her older sister and her sister’s sweetheart will get married.

She describes how her family used public showers in town once per week as part of getting ready for the Sabbath. One image shows a vague representation from a distance of Enia and her mother readying for a shower.

Spiritual Content
Enia celebrates Shabbat and Passover with her family. She also learns to prepare food according to Jewish rules so that the food is kosher.

Violent Content
Soldiers ransack Enia’s house, looking for valuables.

There’s one brief series of panels that shows, from a distance, soldiers lining people up against a building. In the next image, red smudges the wall of the building, and the people are shown collapsed on the ground. The viewer easily understands they’ve been shot to death. Enia is told that her mother was beaten by soldiers and likely shot to death the next morning. She’s told that other family members were shot as well and later learns they were killed in a gas chamber.

At one point, Enia witnesses soldiers beating her brother and begs for them to stop. The panels show simplified images that hint at the violence without being gratuitous.

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 GIRL WHO SANG in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Running for Shelter by Suzette Sheft

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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.

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