Sweeping, stark, tragic, and triumphant.
The true story of how a music-loving Jewish girl survived the Nazis and rebuilt her life in America.
Enia Feld was 5 when the Nazis invaded Poland. At first, even as her mother sewed the Star of David onto her clothes, Enia “didn’t know to be scared,” but violence soon came to the family. Suddenly warned that they must flee, Enia, two older brothers, and her mother managed to escape and seek protection from a neighbor. After years of hiding, their mother’s death, and the end of the war, the siblings ended up in an Austrian displaced persons camp and then on a ship to New York. Enia felt deep gratitude toward her rescuers and contemplated the reasons why some people helped, and others betrayed them. In the U.S., the three Felds took new names, and Enia became Estelle. Her brothers found work, and despite her wish to stay together, they arranged for her to be adopted by the Nadels, whose only child had died in combat. Told in five parts, Nadel’s story presents readers with a picture of her life before (“I thought we would be this happy forever”), during, and—crucially—after the war. Savos’ exceptionally powerful illustrations convey the extremes of human emotion, make original use of different perspectives, and are both cinematic and intimate; they also do not shy away from accurately portraying the hardships and violence.
Sweeping, stark, tragic, and triumphant. (family trees, authors’ notes, process notes, photographs, resources, photo credits) (Graphic memoir. 11-16)Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781250247773
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Born in 1880 in a tiny backwater in Alabama, Helen Keller lived a life familiar to many from the play and movie The Miracle Worker, as well as countless biographies. There’s no denying the drama in the story of the deaf and blind child for whom the world of language became possible through a dedicated and fanatically stubborn teacher, Annie Sullivan. But Helen’s life after that is even more remarkable: she went to high school and then to Radcliffe; she was a radical political thinker and a member of the Wobblies; she supported herself by lecture tours and vaudeville excursions as well as through the kindness of many. Dash (The Longitude Prize, p. 1483) does a clear-sighted and absorbing job of examining Annie’s prickly personality and the tender family that she, Helen, and Annie’s husband John Macy formed. She touches on the family pressures that conspired to keep Helen from her own pursuit of love and marriage; she makes vivid not only Helen’s brilliant and vibrant intelligence and personality, but the support of many people who loved her, cared for her, and served her. She also does not shrink from the describing the social and class divisions that kept some from crediting Annie Sullivan and others intent on making Helen into a puppet and no more. Riveting reading for students in need of inspiration, or who’re overcoming disability or studying changing expectations for women. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-90715-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
More a historical narrative than a character portrait, this account of Tecumseh’s efforts to create a tribal confederacy in the Old Northwest focuses on the great Shawnee leader’s many battles and negotiations with then–Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison and then his disastrous—ultimately fatal—alliance with the British during the War of 1812. Replete with side essays on such varied subtopics as the Northwest Territory, the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12 and the Battle of Lake Erie, it also boasts often–full-color illustrations from archival sources (many of these later paintings and old prints that are inaccurate, as the discursive captions often rightly note, and sometimes too small to make out anyway). In all, this will provide students a coherent view of events if not a clear understanding of Shawnee culture or Tecumseh’s heroic personal qualities. If it's not the 100-page holy grail of middle-grade biographies, it is still pretty close. (glossary, bibliography, source notes, index) (Biography. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4027-6847-7
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
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