Type: children's
Status: I recommend
Author: Morris Gleitzman
Tags: children wwii holocaust poland storytelling
Description: Another funny first-person narrative about extreme naivete in a deadly serious situation fromAnother funny first-person narrative about extreme naivete in a deadly serious situation from Gleitzman -- this time a 10-year-old boy named Felix caught in the Holocaust in Poland who believes the Nazis' hatred is directed specifically at Jewish books. As soon as he figures this out, he runs away from the Catholic orphanage his Jewish bookseller parents left him in almost four years ago and he goes off to find them, with his naive notions continually challenged. Very slowly he begins to worry that it's not just the books the Nazis are upset about, but perhaps literally the Jewish booksellers. When he rescues Zelda, a younger girl, after her parents have been shot, he starts telling her stories to keep the truth from her. Later, after witnessing atrocities that are difficult to blame on books or booksellers, the two of them are rescued by a debtist named Barney, along with other Jewish orphans, and then Felix comes to understand that his parents told him a story almost four years ago -- a story that saved his life. He goes on to tell the other orphans stories to help keep them alive, even though sometimes the true stories must be told, even if painful. During this time of hiding, Felix goes out as Barney's dental assistant and tells the patients stories to relieve the pain. In the end, when the Nazis discover their hiding place and Barney and the children are put on a train, it is Felix's stories that inadvertently reveal a weak spot in the wooden wall of the boxcar and a hole is kicked out. Only Felix and Zelda jump and survive -- and that's where the book ends -- with Felix thankful for his luck at having, more than once, a good thing in his life.
"Everybody deserves something good in their life at least once."
Gleitzman addresses the readers at the end of the book, telling his own grandfather's family were Jews who died in Poland and how this book was inspired by the true story of Janusz Korczak, a Polish Jewish doctor who died in 1942 with orphans he had been taking care of....
2006-09-23
