Tag Archives: WWII

Review: Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros

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Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros cover shows a golem made of stone whose face is partly that of a teenage girl.

Wrath Becomes Her
Aden Polydoros
Inkyard Press
Published October 10, 2023

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About Wrath Becomes Her

FRANKENSTEIN meets INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS in this stunning Jewish historical horror novel from the award-winning author of THE CITY BEAUTIFUL.

Vera was made for vengeance.

Lithuania, 1943. A father drowns in the all-consuming grief of a daughter killed by the Nazis. He can’t bring Chaya back from the dead, but he can use kishuf — an ancient and profane magic — to create a golem in her image. A Nazi killer, to avenge her death.

When Vera awakens, she can feel her violent purpose thrumming within her. But she can also feel glimpses of a human life lived, of stolen kisses amidst the tragedy, and of a grisly death. And when she meets Akiva, she recognizes the boy with soft lips that gave warm kisses. But these memories aren’t hers, and Vera doesn’t know if she gets—or deserves —to have a life beyond what she was made for.

Vera’s strength feels limitless—until she learns that there are others who would channel kishuf for means far less noble than avenging a daughter’s death. As she confronts the very basest of humanity, Vera will need more than what her creator gave Not just a reason to fight, but a reason to live. 

My Review

This is the first book by Aden Polydoros that I’ve read. I started BONE WEAVER, but got pulled away from the book before I could finish it. I knew from that that I liked the writing style, so I felt pretty confident that I would like this book– and I did!

The subject is pretty dark, and the story takes place in winter in Lithuania, so it’s freezing cold in the middle of a war in which the Jews aren’t guaranteed to be safe even from the soldiers fighting against the Germans.

Vera’s exploration of her identity and her desperation to understand humanity reminded me a lot of the book FRANKENSTEIN. She knows she’s other, but she has such deep human impulses and desires, and at first, she idolizes humans. The more she sees war and how people treat one another, the less enamored she is with people.

I thought the story might follow a well-established pattern in which the idea of personhood is explored and romance happens between a created being and a human. There are some hints of romance, especially on Vera’s side, but the story doesn’t center around romantic love.

I really liked the ending of the book. It wasn’t simple, but it felt right to me. I think readers who enjoyed THIS REBEL HEART by Katherine Locke will like this one, too.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Major characters are Jewish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
References to celebrating Shabbos. References to Jewish folklore, history, and religious texts.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Warfare. References to torture. Graphic descriptions of injuries sustained in battles.

Drug Content
A soldier drinks Vodka from a flask and uses it to wash a wound.

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 WRATH BECOMES HER in exchange for my honest review.

Review: They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker

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They Called Us Enemy
George Takei
Justin Eisinger
Steven Scott
Illustrated by Harmony Becker
Top Shelf Productions
Published July 16, 2019

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About They Called Us Enemy

A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon — and America itself.

Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s — and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten “relocation centers,” hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei’s firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

My Review

I’d heard of this book before, but it was mentioned again in George Takei’s biography in MORE AWESOME ASIAN AMERICANS, a book featuring 20 biographies of Asian Americans. I discovered my library had an electronic copy, so I checked it out and read it in one sitting.

The illustrator, Harmony Becker, did an amazing job focusing each panel in on the most critical elements. There are lots of panels that at first glance seemed very simple, but as I looked at them longer, I noticed how the illustrations often drew my eye to important features.

I also thought the balance between the illustrations and the stories was expertly done. The combination felt much larger than the sum of its parts. I found so many moments deeply moving.

The story bounces back and forth between Takei’s childhood, showing his experiences with his family, and then a more present-day version of himself, reflecting back on those days or speaking to an audience about his experiences.

The story also does a great job delivering personal moments as well as the historical events that impacted George Takei and his family. I loved the way that he spoke about his father throughout the book. I loved his admiration for his dad and the treasure of the lessons he learned from him.

All that is not to say the book is without shocking or hard moments. The reality of what he and 160,000 others endured was and is terrible. I think the authors did a wonderful job speaking truth in an engaging way, great for a young audience. I found the story deeply moving and inspiring, perfect for late elementary or middle school readers.

Content Notes for They Called Us Enemy

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Representation
Major characters are Japanese American.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used a couple times.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to marriage.

Spiritual Content
Reference to a Buddhist faith leader being incarcerated.

Violent Content
References to and descriptions of racist behavior toward Japanese Americans. Some panels show soldiers carrying guns.

Drug Content
None.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.