(Image from Barnes & Noble)

When the Nazis invade Krakow, the life of Jacob "Yanek" Gruener changes forever.  Jews are no longer safe in Poland.  Not even a harmless 10-year-old boy.  Crowded into a city ghetto with other Jews, Yanek and his family must eke out a life with little privacy, scant food, and no freedom.  Despite the hardships they endure, the Grueners are grateful to be together while all around them, friends and neighbors disappear daily.  

One day, the inevitable happens and Yanek is left all alone.  When the Nazis finally capture him, he's sent to a concentration camp.  His youth and relative strength mark him as "lucky"—as long as he can work, he can survive.  Moved from camp to camp, Yanek does everything he can to survive.  The more he suffers, the more he wonders if living is even worth it.  As hope dwindles and his "health"—the only thing keeping him alive—seeps out of him, Yanek longs to give up.  Will he continue his fight for survival, for freedom?  Will liberation come soon enough to save a young boy who's rapidly losing hope?  

Based on a true story, Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz tells an amazing tale of survival.  Like all concentration camp novels, it details the unbelievable horrors suffered by people who actually lived.  It's fiction, yes, but it's grounded in harsh, shocking reality.  It's an eye-opening novel, one that's both eye-opening and touching.  As haunting as it is, the novel is a perfect one to hand to kids who want to learn more about the Holocaust.  They'll definitely root for Yanek to persevere; in turn, they might just be inspired to push through their own challenges with courage and determination.

(Readalikes: Reminds me of other Holocaust books for children, including The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, and Making Bombs for Hitler by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch)

Grade:

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

When a heated argument between her parents takes a violent turn, 4-year-old Rachel Rabinowitz loses everything she's ever known—her guardians, her older brother, and her home.  Taken from her Lower Eastside tenement, the frightened child is thrust into the Hebrew Infant Home, a New York City orphanage that runs on the donations of wealthy Jews.  There, she becomes a guinea pig for Dr. Mildred Solomon, a radiologist who uses the home's residents for her science experiments.  It's a bleak, terrifying existence for a frightened, lonely girl, the emotional and physical effects of which will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Fast forward 35 years.  It's 1954 and Rachel is a hospice nurse working at the Old Hebrew Home in New York.  She is shocked when she receives a new patient, whose name she recognizes instantly—Dr. Mildred Solomon.  Dying from bone cancer, the woman is as cold and vain as ever.  She doesn't recognize Rachel (once known as Orphan #8), which makes the nurse even more angry with her old nemesis.  Buoyed by thoughts of revenge, Rachel goes through the motions of caring for the elderly woman, all the while entertaining murderous thoughts.  But when it comes to actually ending Dr. Solomon's life, can Rachel do it?  Faced with the ultimate choice—exact revenge or exercise mercy—what will she choose?

Like the heroine of her first novel, Kim van Alkemade has ties to a famous New York City orphanage.  Her grandfather and his two brothers grew up in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York (on which the fictional Hebrew Infant Home and Orphaned Hebrews Home are based).  It was while doing genealogical research on these men that van Alkemade came across the astonishing story of Dr. Elsie Fox, a graduate of Cornell Medical School who performed science experiments on children at the orphanage.  Using this intriguing historical tidbit as a springboard, van Alkemade uses a made-up character to tell the stories of real children (like her grandfather and great uncles) who grew up inside institutions like the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.  The result is an engrossing historical novel that's taut, vivid, and thought-provoking.  As you can imagine, it's also downright depressing.  Even though I empathized with Rachel, I didn't find myself connecting much with her.  So, although the premise of Orphan #8 fascinated me, the story itself disappointed a bit.  All in all, I found the book interesting and memorable, but not knock-my-socks-off amazing.

(Readalikes:  Hm, I can't really think of anything.  Can you?)

Grade:

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Despite Kläre Ente Kohler's Jewish ancestry, she's never been a particularly devoted practitioner of Judaism.  Her Jewishness exists mainly in fond memories of sumptuous Sabbath dinners with her extended family at her grandparents' luxurious home.  As an adult, her connection to the Jewish community has been tenuous at best.  With the Nazis rising to power in her homeland, however, Kläre has reason to worry.  All around her, Jewish businesses are being ransacked, their proprietors beaten in the streets.  The worse things get, the more terrified she becomes.  Many Jews are fleeing Germany.  Kläre knows her ailing husband and elderly mother can't make such an arduous journey, even if they did have visas.  But what of her two sons?  Can she find a way to keep them safe?  Unable to leave, Kläre must do what she can to help her children, her friends, and herself stay alive.  With Nazi brutality against the Jews growing more deadly every day, that will not be an easy task.  It will take every ounce of strength, courage, and tenacity Kläre possesses just to survive.  

Having grown up hearing dramatic tales about her grandfather's family's former lives in Europe, Barbara Stark-Nemon became especially fascinated by the experiences of her great aunt, Kläre.  Her debut novel, Even in Darkness, is based on the life of this indomitable Jewess who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust, after which she spent many years as the unlikely companion to a much younger Catholic priest.  While Kläre's war story is (unfortunately) not all that unique, it definitely has potential to be the stuff of good fiction.  Unfortunately, Stark-Nemon bogs the story down with so much extraneous detail that the action in the novel feels anticlimactic and dull.  The characters never felt real to me, so I had trouble immersing myself in their conflicts.  Lacking a real plot, Even in Darkness seems aimless and unstructured.  While I appreciated Stark-Nemon's quietly assured prose, I also longed for more dynamic storytelling.  For me, Even in Darkness has the stiffer, more distancing feel of non-fiction instead of the enveloping warmth of a well-constructed novel.  Overall, then, this was a plodding, difficult read for me.  I enjoyed the book's message (beauty and love can be found even in the ugliness of war), but found the novel itself not to be my particular cup of tea.

(Readalikes:  Reminded me of other WWII novels, although no specific title comes to mind)

Grade:

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

On a summer night in July of 1942, 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski awakens to the sound of someone pounding on her front door.  A bolt of fear races through her.  She's heard her parents whispering about round-ups and camps and Jewish men being forced from their homes.  Have the police found her father, who spends every night hiding in the cellar?  Are they going to take him away?  Sarah's shocked when the policemen—French policeman, no less—demand that she and her mother come with them.  In the few minutes she's given to pack her things, Sarah locks her little brother in a secret cupboard, promising he'll be safe until she can come back for him.  

Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond—an American journalist living in Paris—is researching the Vélodrome d'Hiver roundup in order to write a story for the upcoming anniversary of its occurrence.  Although the Parisians she talks to are reluctant to speak of it—if, indeed, they've even heard of it—Julia is fascinated by this little known event in the city's history.  The more she discovers about the roundup, which involved the arrests of around 12,000 Jews, mostly women and children, the more horrified she becomes.  When she finds a personal link to one of the roundup's young victims, Julia vows to find out what happened to little Sarah Starzynski and her family.  

Urged by her family and friends in Paris to leave the matter alone, Julia becomes even more determined in her quest.  As her search for the truth becomes an obsession she can't let go of, she finds herself reevaluating her own life, from her marriage to her work to her own future.  

Since I'm probably the last blogger on Earth to read Sarah's Key, Tatiana de Rosnay's bestselling novel, I don't have to tell you what a powerful read it is.  The rave reviews the book's garnered speak for themselves.  Although the events related in the story are similar to those in other Holocaust novels, de Rosnay brings something new to the genre.  Her prose feels a little stiff, but other than that, she tells the kind of compelling, haunting tale that stays with you long after you close the book.  

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of other adult novels about the Holocaust, including Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum)

Grade:

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Hannah Stern isn't looking forward to another boring Passover Seder with her extended family.  The 12-year-old would prefer to skip it all—the lipstick-laced kisses from Aunt Eva; the senile ravings of her grandfather; the endless droning about Egypt and plagues and the children of Israel.  The traditions force them all to remember the past and Hannah is so tired of hearing about things that happened so long ago they hardly matter in the present.

Opening the door of one's home to symbolically let the prophet Elijah inside is a silly tradition only babies believe in.  When Hannah reluctantly receives the honor of performing the task, she certainly doesn't expect anything unusual to happen.  But it does.  As she steps through the door, her family's modern New York apartment disappears.  Hannah finds herself in a village she doesn't recognize with people she doesn't know.  Everyone calls her "Chaya" and acts like there's nothing strange about her being trapped in a Polish village in 1942.  They laugh when she speaks of magical doors, but Hannah doesn't find her predicament funny at all.  She's studied the Holocaust in school, she's heard her family's terrible concentration camp stories, she knows what's going to happen to the Polish Jews.      As Hannah experiences all the confusion, all the injustice, all the fear her ancestors felt during World War II, she begins to understand why her parents insist on remembering their heartbreaking plight.

Can Hannah use her knowledge from the future to save her ancestors from their devastating fate?  Can she stop the horrors of the Holocaust from happening at all, at least to the people whose blood she will someday share?  And, most importantly, can she find her way home to Hannah Stern's nice, safe life in present-day New York?  Or will she die as Chaya, another victim of senseless Nazi brutality?

I've heard parents say that The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen is too violent, too vivid, for young readers.  And, yet, it's one of the most compelling children's books I've read about the Holocaust.  Why?  Because it comes to such brilliant life with all its rich, Technicolor details.  As you read, it's impossible not to feel as if you're walking in Chaya's clunky black shoes.  Just as it did for Hannah, the modern world falls away, giving you a little bit of an understanding for what a young Polish Jew might have seen, heard and felt as her gentle world crumbled into a ghastly, irrevocable nightmare.  This small book may, at times, be difficult to digest, but, trust me, the understanding that comes from it is worth every hard swallow.  Everyone, children included, should read this touching classic.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of other books about the Holocaust/concentration camps written for children/teens, including The Diary of Anne Frank, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry and Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys)

Grade: