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liza

Books, Dogs, and Other Blogs

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”

 

Currently reading

Drums of Autumn
Diana Gabaldon
The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
Gerald Horne
Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again (paperback)
Lewis Carbone

I wanted to like this more.

Yellow Star - Jennifer Roy

The premise sounded better than its delivery.

 

The story is of the Lodz ghetto in Poland, and of the 270,000 Jews that were put in, only 800 survived.  12 were children, and Sylvia (the author's aunt) was one of them.  This is the retelling of her experience as a young child of 4 when the ghetto was established, and aged 10 when they were liberated. 

 

It's a fascinating premise, and if I retell it here, it makes a great story.  It's written in free verse, each line is 3-5 words, 8-10 lines per "paragraph" and maybe only 3 or 4 paragraphs per event.  Each event is told in chronological order, but are pretty disconnected, jumping from scene to scene.  There isn't much in the way of transition, just a string of memories and events.  Because it's told from a child's perspective, it struck me as very YA.  The book only took me about an hour to read because of the way it's written.  I think it would make a good introduction to WWII for a child who is mature to read about such things.  The YA-nature of the book was really unexpected for me, which is why I gave it the lower score.  If it was a bit meatier, I think I would have enjoyed it more.