A significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust.
Kor and Buccieri tell the story of how Kor and her twin sister survived Auschwitz; this new edition, published posthumously following Kor’s death in 2019, includes an extensive afterword.
In 1944, when Eva and her identical twin, Miriam, were 10, their family of six was taken from their small Romanian village and sent to Auschwitz. Upon their arrival at the camp, Eva and Miriam were separated from their family, whom they never saw again. Twin children and teens arriving at Auschwitz were selected by Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death, to be used as test subjects in his scientific experiments. In straightforward language the book relates the twins’ daily routines, including lab experiments and occasions on which they suffered serious brushes with death as the result of injections they were given. Many of the memories related come across as rough sketches, though some graphic details are included. Following their liberation from Auschwitz in 1945, Eva goes on to chart their path back to Romania, from there to Israel, and finally her immigration to America, where she became an outspoken advocate and organizer for Holocaust remembrance. The afterword provides more background and insight into the last decade of Kor’s life and her controversial decision to forgive the Nazis as an act of personal healing.
A significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust. (afterword, author's note, photo credits, additional resources) (Memoir. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-939100-45-0
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
A visceral window into a survivor’s childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love.
As palliative for his beloved Abuela's worsening dementia, memoirist Ogle offers her a book of childhood recollections.
Cast in episodic rushes of free verse and paralleling events chronicled in Free Lunch (2019) and Punching Bag (2021), the poems take the author from age 4 until college in a mix of love notes to his devoted, hardworking, Mexican grandmother; gnawing memories of fights and racial and homophobic taunts at school as he gradually becomes aware of his sexuality; and bitter clashes with both his mother, described as a harsh, self-centered deadbeat with seemingly not one ounce of love to give or any other redeeming feature, and the distant White father who threw him out the instant he came out. Though overall the poems are less about the author’s grandmother than about his own angst and issues (with searing blasts of enmity reserved for his birthparents), a picture of a loving intergenerational relationship emerges, offering moments of shared times and supportive exchanges amid the raw tallies of beat downs at home, sudden moves to escape creditors, and screaming quarrels. “My memories of a wonderful woman are written in words and verses and fragments in this book,” he writes in a foreword, “unable to be unwritten. And if it is forgotten, it can always be read again.”
A visceral window into a survivor’s childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love. (Verse memoir. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-01995-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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