A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust is written by Loic Dauvillier, illustrated by Marc Lizano and colored by Greg Salsedo.  It was also translated by Alexis Siegel.  It's a very slim, middle level graphic novel.  This is the second Holocaust themed graphic novel that I've read.  In college I read Art Spiegelman's Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began ; I also read Spiegelman's later graphic novel that depicted his experiences in New York City on September 11, 2001, and I highly recommend them all. I don't know if Hidden is based upon the writer's family history or if it is a fictionalized Holocaust story.  Other than a synopsis of the story on the book jacket, there isn't really information on the writer and illustrator.  According to the publisher's website, Hidden is a Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book, an America Library Association Notable Children's ...

I was between books, and it wasn't looking good for finding a new one that would keep my attention.  However, I recently saw this one on the new books list for the library, and it sounded interesting--the family history element combined with the two world wars grabbed my attention.  At its heart, The Family is an in-depth study of the author's mother's paternal ancestry.  It begins with Laskin's great-great-grandfather in an area of Eastern Europe called the Pale where Russia required its Jewish citizens to live and traces the families of his great-great-grandfather's children and grandchildren through the years.  It is a riveting, at times heartbreaking, read. Laskin opens the story of his Kaganovich/Cohen ancestors in the late nineteenth century in the old country in an area of Eastern Europe that was Russia at the start of the book then became Poland and Lithuania before becoming Russia again and so on.  It is here that his Jewish ancestors made a comfor...

I'm sorry I can't send you my notes on Charlotte and Emily [Bronte]--I used them to kindle a fire in my cookstove, there being no other paper in the house. I'd already burnt up my tide tables, the Book of Revelation, and the story about Job. from page 52 of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books. from page 53 of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. According to a review that I read for the novel, Shaffer died before it was published; Barrows, her niece, finished and edited the novel for publication. The novel is set in post-war London and Guernsey Island; World War II has literally just ended--it is 1946--and London, Guernsey Island, and its citizens are struggling to rebuild their towns, their homes and their lives. They are wondering if and when life will ever return to normal and how do they move ...