Wendie, here are a few titles from the past that I thought were excellent. I read each of them years ago, so I may have some details wrong, but these were among the best of the Holocaust books I read and, in some cases, wrote about in the 1990s.
*Shadow of the Wal*l, by Christa Laird: Misha lives in Dr. Janos Korczak's Orphans' Home in the Warsaw Ghetto. The novel does a brilliant job of conveying conditions in the ghetto, the child smuggling, and especially the humanism of Korczak and his assistant, Mme Stefa. The scene in which the orphans, accompanied by Korczak and Stefa, march towards the train is particularly touching. Two novels set in Germany: *Friedrich*, by Hans Peter Richter (translated from the German): This amazing memoir (I think it's written as a novel, but it reflects the childhood of the author) focuses on the friendship between a Jewish boy and a non-Jewish German boy. It traces the graduall unfolding of Nazi control and moves into a depiction of German guilt. As I recall, the author remembers his childhood as a period that tainted his entire life and his nation, and writing this seemed to me to be his way of coping with his personal guilt for the betrayal of his Jewish friend. *Good-bye, Marianne*, by Irene N. Watts. A novel of the Kindertransporte. Watts focuses on one girl and the wrenching decision her parents must make to let her go on the train to England on the Kindertransporte. For classroom use, it would be excellent, because it's quite sho and has both a boy (Ernest--gentile German) and a girl (Marianne) as protagonists. It does not, however, have quite the authentic ring that *Friedrich* does. Two novels of occupied countries: *The Upstairs Room*, by Johanna Reiss. Like the Franks, Reiss's family hid with a Dutch family during the war, in this case in the countryside,. Unlike Anne Frank and her sister, Johanna and her sister survived. There are some very tense moments (German soldiers billet themselves in the rescuers' home for a brief period, and there are occasional searches of their house). That makes the novel ideal for dramatization, and I in fact used it in Remembrance Day performances because some of the scenes were intensely dramatic. It's a memoir and rings very true, but it was published in the 1970s. *A Pocketful of Seeds *by Marilyn Sachs. Sachs based this novel on her friend's experiences in WWII France under occupation. Rebellious, spunky Nicole is away from home when the police round up her family for deportation. She ends up in hiding in a convent school, which is quite an ordeal for a feisty young teen. Although written by someone who wasn't there and didn't live through those terrible years in France, this novel evokes the atmosphere in wartime France, and the presence of collaborators, perfectly. And one novel set in New York: *Alan and Naomi,* by Myron Levoy. Alan Silverman, probably around 13 or 14, lives in NY and only wants to be one of the guys. But it's 1944, and a French girl named Naomi Kirshenbaum moves into his building. She acts strangely; Alan doesn't really understand it, but we know that there must have been some trauma. His parents ask him to visit the neighbours with whom Naomi is staying, and try to draw her out of herself. One vehicle for doing this is his Charlie McCarthy puppet (remember those?), and the scenes in which Alan, with some reluctance, reaches out to Naomi through the puppet are particularly touching. It's a novel that subtly evokes the war in France, but also touches on both American near-obliviousness to their people's suffering in Europe, and on what it was like being a Jewish kid among gentile kids in America in the 1940s. The psychological study of Alan is as profound as the study of the traumatized Naomi. Marjorie On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 6:58 PM Wendie Sittenfield via Hasafran < hasafran@lists.osu.edu> wrote: > Hello Safranim, > > Please send me your suggestions for a really engaging book for a middle > school class to read prior to starting a Holocaust elective. > > Many thanks in advance. > > Shana tova. > > Wendie Sittenfield > > > __ > Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual > author > and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries > (AJL) > ================================== > Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: > hasaf...@lists.service.ohio-state.edu > To join Ha-Safran, update or change your subscription, etc. - click here: > https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran > Questions, problems, complaints, compliments send to: galro...@osu.edu > Ha-Safran Archives: > Current: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.service.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html > Earlier Listserver: > > http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html > AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org > -- > Hasafran mailing list > Hasafran@lists.osu.edu > https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran >
__ Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) ================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@lists.service.ohio-state.edu To join Ha-Safran, update or change your subscription, etc. - click here: https://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran Questions, problems, complaints, compliments send to: galro...@osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.service.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html Earlier Listserver: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org -- Hasafran mailing list Hasafran@lists.osu.edu https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/hasafran
