The Complete Maus (Maus, #1-2) by Art Spiegelman

What a fantastic book for our book club discussion where members ranged in age from 13-50 plus. Media propaganda and popular culture have a plethora of anti-semitic caricatures and stereotypes used throughout history to sway public opinion. Art Spiegelman was taking a course in college studying this type of propaganda and political art in comics when he came up with the idea of writing a comic book on his father's survival of the Holocaust. He studied artists such as comic writer, R. Crumb, who drew anti-semitic cartoons against African Americans and Jews during the 1960s. He also studied German political cartoonists like Phillipp Rupprecht, a.k.a.Fips, who worked creating Nazi propaganda during WWII where Jews were portrayed as vicious rats and made scapegoats for various reasons such as the economic problems following WWI. Spiegelman explains this in an article promoting his book, MetaMaus, that it was out of this university class that the idea for writing this graphic novel took seed (Spiegelman).

Spiegelman takes this idea of vermin and turns his father's story into one where Jews are represented as helpless mice; an uncomfortable yet ironic mirror of negative political caricatures. The mice have no expressions on their mouths only when they scream or cry and the pictures are simple, not overly detailed. One person suggested during book club that the lack of a mouth was a symbol of silence while another brought up that Hitler gassed Jews using the same pesticide used to exterminate vermin. The attempt to extinguish a race was conducted in a frighteningly systematic way.

Spiegelman's mice are fearful, loving, and burrow underground to hide from the Nazis.  He tells the story of his father's remarkable resourcefulness and survival skills during a terrible time and the abstraction of anthropomorphizing the characters as mice helps put distance between the horrors of the story making it accessible to a wider and younger audience. The simple illustrations don't distract from the narrative. If the pictures were too detailed, the story flow or fluency might become too interrupted.

I was uncomfortable with the anthropomorphic representations: Jews are mice, Poles pigs, French frogs, German's cats, and Americans dogs. However, the negative caricatures are perhaps the author's way to point to the political and manipulative power of those in government who use images to demean ethnic groups. Or is this representing his father's racist views. He hated Poles and Blacks. Perhaps this is addressed in, "MetaMaus," his book about writing "Maus."

When in the present, the author portrays himself as wearing a mask of a mouse. Is he trying to unmask stereotypes or is it about being a second generation survivor of the Holocaust - a child whose father passed on his guilt of surviving when others didn't? Or is Speigelman symbolizing how difficult it is to write about something that he didn't experience? This is the memory of an event that his father narrates and he wasn't there and doesn't know the details. The author is constructing a past and identity that seems futile; hence, the Samuel Beckett quote and writer's block that is revealed in the therapist session. The comic took 13 years to write leading him to therapy sessions. Or maybe he is trying to unmask his own identity and come to terms with his own trauma.

The story is framed by the author interviewing his father whose behavior was irrational, contradictory, and loving at times; yet, understandable as someone who had to survive by his wits and broad base of knowledge during the Holocaust. His son had an inferiority complex never feeling good enough, but the father seemed to be projecting his Holocaust survival skills onto his son in their relationship. It becomes evident as the father's tale unfolds that he survived Auschwitz because he knew a little bit of many jobs and was able to fake it until he gained new skills; he shows this as he becomes a cobbler, tinsmith, and salesman, to name a few. He also bribed when necessary, saving his bread and trading to get some protection. If he didn't have the answer, he found someone that did. Spiegelman captures the complexity of his father's love, flaws, and damage caused by the Holocaust through the metafictional story of their relationship as he interviews him for the book he is writing.

The story also shows the author struggling with guilt. He feels guilty that his book was so successful it won the Pulitzer Prize and that he actually profited from the Holocaust. Spiegelman discusses his guilt with a therapist, and his ambivalence toward it:  "No matter what I accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz." The therapist suggests that his father took his guilt out on him for surviving the camps. The therapist also says that the victims can't tell their story. Spiegelman quotes Samuel Beckett, "Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness" revealing how words are necessary to tell this tragic story but inadequate.

Quoting Beckett shows how Spiegelman stumbles to find words to name the unnameable. The novel has an insert about his mother's suicide when he was young. He expresses a desire to know her story but his father has burned all her diaries. Much of the story revolves around the unresolved trauma of his father losing his firstborn, Richlieu, and the death of the mother. Her story is untold and silent just like the mouths of the mice. Spiegelman must deal with that trauma in his own way.  In a powerful ending, when Spiegelman's father's health is failing he calls the author his dead first son's name, Richlieu, revealing just how deep the loss has been for him. A terrific book and not to be missed.

5 Smileys

Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust by Loïc Dauvillier, Marc Lizano (Illustrations), Greg Salsedo (Ink), Alexis Siegel (Translator)

The Holocaust Museum addresses the age-appropriateness of introducing the Holocaust to children. It specifies that students grades 6 and up can understand the complexities and context of the Holocaust, while younger students struggle with the scale and scope of the genocide. Elementary students can be taught tolerance and the harmfulness of prejudice, but the texts need to be more introductory in nature rather than comprehensive. Hidden provides an excellent launching point of introducing the Holocaust through the eyes of a grandma sharing her story of persecution during World War II with her granddaughter. Readers will empathize with the grandmother's fear and pain, while seeing how Jewish students were singled out and mistreated at school. The dark side of human nature is balanced with adults risking their lives in the Resistance to save the young Jewish girl and hide her from the authorities on a countryside farm.

The story is framed by the granddaughter, Elsa, getting up in the middle of the night and finding her grandmother, Dounia, crying. She crawls into her lap and asks why she is sad, so the grandmother tells her story for the first time in her life. At the end it is revealed that the son didn't even know about his mother being hidden from the Nazis. Dounia shows how deep her grief was over the trauma, but by talking to her granddaughter the story shows the possibility of her healing from her painful past.

The father tells the girl that the star she must wear is a sheriff's badge and she goes to school only to be pushed to the back of the classroom, ignored by the teacher when she knows the answer to a question, and put down by the teacher. The author does a brilliant job unfolding her innocent belief that it was a badge and how her parents in an effort to protect her didn't prepare her for the anger she had to face at school. She later learns of her friend, Isaac's public shaming in class. She and another girl with a badge/star are shunned and isolated on the playground. The color illustrations capture their downcast faces contrasting with the other smiling students playing hopscotch and tag.

When the police ransack her place, she finds a reprieve in the countryside on a farm. Working on the farm helps her forget all the frightening moments that led her to it and the reader learns about those citizens that were not Jewish, but risked their lives to help Jews escape the atrocities that were being done to eliminate them. The speech bubbles change in color to indicate when the Grandmother is talking to her granddaughter. This helps guide the narration and makes the dialogue clear.

The Charlie Brown-type illustrations are childlike and support the introductory text. Tension mounts as Dounia sees stars like graffiti on the glass of the shops owned by Jews and police hurting adults and spitting on them. The images show more than the text and reflects Dounia's bewilderment at why her city has changed into such a harsh place. When she later has to change her name to protect her identity and the people hiding her, her expression is afraid or unhappy. Eventually she learns to smile again but not before having to face physical changes in others and death.

5 Smileys

The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson

Finding excellent introductory books on the Holocaust for young readers is not as easy as it sounds even with the plethora of choices. More often than not they are too brutal for 5th or 6th graders or they don't give enough background to understand the setting and attitudes of people. Other times they are too one-sided presenting the Germans as one-dimensional villains omitting those that resisted the Nazi racist ideology. This story is a balanced account of Jewish attitudes that came from their experiences in the first World War, German's being merciful and merciless, and the author's firsthand experiences of surviving the ghetto's and concentration camps, giving it an authenticity more powerful than some of the more emotionally manipulative Holocaust stories. A straightforward account, it tells the horrors the author went through, but it is not graphic in its descriptions making the violence more palatable for the younger reader. The epilogue is a testament to the author's perseverance and courage in overcoming his trauma and living a long fulfilling life. While the start is slow it provides necessary background information. The action picks up in the middle and ends with a bang.

When Leon Leyson dad's new factory job landed his family in Krakow, Poland, they didn't realize how it would save their lives as World War II broke out in Europe. His dad's job put his family in contact with Oskar Schindler, the German Nazi that was sympathetic to the Jews and saved 1200 of them from death by claiming their unique skills as necessary for him to run his factory. Leon was the youngest person on "Schindler's list" at the age of 15 and his actions throughout the war saved his life and his family's. Leon took great risks at critical moments appealing to Nazi men in authoritative positions that had the power to kill him or show mercy. He was lucky in many ways, but he was also extraordinarily brave. Amazingly, most of Leon's family survived the ghetto and concentration camps. While the Nazi's tried to dehumanize the Jews, Leon oftentimes found someone, whether civilian or soldier, that represented the good in humanity and his story is tempered with good deeds in the midst of angst.

While reading this book I was reminded of the similarities between Leon's experience and slavery in the United States. The Nazi's stripped the Jews of their dignity just like slave owners stripped blacks of their dignity. As the laws eliminated Jewish civil rights over time, Leon marveled at his classmates prejudice. Not all of their family friends had forsaken them. Leon's dad would sell his suits through a friend on the black market that helped put scraps of food on their table. Leon's tale is sprinkled with glimmers of hope and humanity along with the inhumane acts inflicted on the Jews. His description of the rampant starvation and fear as the Nazi's took control of Krakow brings to life daily living. His family didn't think of the future but worked to survive day-to-day as Leon scrounged for potato peels in garbage cans or anything edible. Hunger consumed his thoughts and actions. He also shows how there was no guarantee of a person's safety even with a work permit from Schindler. Yet, in spite of the struggles, he also describes new friendships and new love in the ghettos. How his mother fought having her dignity being stripped by chucking furniture out the second story window so the Nazi's would not be able to reuse it. Leon and his family's resilience against fear and hate shows that attempts to dehumanize the Jews and make them feel worthless did not always work. Leon, his mom, and others risked their lives to retain their dignity as their oppressors tried to take it away.

While the general public persecuted the Jews some were silent witnesses, such as Dr. Neu. In a powerful ending, Leon describes how he was tutored by a German man after the war three times a week for two years in school subjects in order to catch up on his education. He distinguishes true Nazi's from "Germans who retained some humanity." Dr. Nue was the latter and Leon appreciated that he didn't "whitewash" the past. He asked Leon questions about his experiences and listened. Leon describes true Nazi's as ones that say, "We didn't know" taking no responsibility and pointing the finger elsewhere. Dr. Neu's wife said that once and Dr. Neu scolded her. The civilians knew of the atrocities, but were afraid or unable to do anything about it. When Leon comes to America and sees blacks being persecuted by Jim Crow laws or segregation he cannot believe that he is seeing inequality and prejudice again. Unfortunately, the theme of persecution, war, and prejudice exist today just as much as in the past. Leon Leyson's timeless message is the hope for a better world that is ruled by humanity not hate.

5 Smileys

Rose Under Fire (Code Name Verity) by Elizabeth Wein

"Code Name Verity" lovers will like this book that is similar with its Holocaust setting. I find that after years of reading books on the Holocaust, I find many blur together. But NOT the ones by this author. Elizabeth Wein writes great character-driven stories and this is a terrific story of survival during a brutal war. Rose Justice is a transport pilot from America who gets captured by the Germans and taken to the notorious Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. She hooks up with some Polish prisoners who were cruelly tortured by Germans in medical experiments. Rose is the only American in the camp and they protect her and even die for her because they want her to tell the rest of the world their story. They feel she has a chance to get out of the camp and the incredible bonding through horrible circumstances show how they were able to not give up on living.

Wein is an amazing writer. This book is written quite different than "Code Name Verity." It's an epistolary novel with Rose inking the pages of a notebook with the fear and trauma of surviving a concentration camp. The ending is one of hope and the belief in a better world while not forgetting the past. The plot is straightforward without the plot twists and unreliable narrator found in "Code Name Verity." Rose is a poet and the author shows her gift for poetry. My favorite was "The Subtle Briar." I'm sure you'll find your own. Wein cleverly weaves poetry as a means for Rose to stay sane. She claims it saved her life because she recited a poem while being whipped and caught the attention of the woman who oversaw the Polish prisoners that looked out for her at the camp.

My dad owned a Piper Twin engine plane when I was a kid and later a Cessna. He absolutely loves to talk planes. Planes from World War II. Planes from his days in the Air Force. Planes that he's flown. Today though, he was reminiscing about when he flew transportation for Angel Flight, a nonprofit organization that provides free plane transportation for people with medical problems who can't afford commercial flight. The character Rose reminded me so much of my dad because flying for her is like breathing. She absolutely loves it. The author must be a pilot. Her passion for planes comes through in details that are so right on I found myself thinking of my own father's love. This helped add to the authenticity of the character and plausibility of an escape.

The characters fortitude and creativity in maintaining their sanity and hope is one of the powerful elements in this story. Wein shows how everyone loses in war and makes it quite poignant in the German character, Anna Engel. I thought she was brave to try and explain her point of view and marveled at what a good job she does creating a woman who was complex and as much a victim as a victimizer. But then Wein did this in "Code Name Verity" with the villains so I wasn't surprised. The flashbacks were well done transitioning back and forth in a way that was easy to follow. She's a good study on how to write them. Like I said, she's an amazing writer.

4 Smileys

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Every summer our family would pack the car and head West to a National Park for holiday. My husband and daughter have built-in GPS brains that can't get lost if they try, while my brain is a mass of tangled wires that has more in common with Peter Pan's Lost Boys. The running joke between my husband and daughter is to ask me which way to go and then crank the wheel in the opposite direction once I reply before laughing wickedly. I am consistently and amazingly wrong every single time I try to guess which way to go. I have told my husband I would never be able to do this overseas gig because I'd be lost in the wrong country with the wrong ID. Kind of like Verity in this story. Except she got caught by the Gestapo because of her lack of direction.

Let me be clear that this book isn't appropriate for elementary kids. Stories about the Holocaust are always upsetting and horrible for me. This story is no different. It begins with Verity being tortured although she makes light of it and not until we get to Maddie's point of view do we see how cruelty of Verity's torture. And others. Heads are cut off, people shot, burned, tortured... the brutalities of war yank emotions up and down like a yo-yo. Ugh. I had many a headaches trying to not cry. I wished I had known that going into the reading. Part of the problem is there are some great plot twists and trying to discuss the book threatens to give away the surprises.

No doubt, this is a well-written story with terrific characters and a complex plot. Verity is a special operation agent and has been captured by the Gestapo for looking left (very British) when crossing the street in France. She happens to be Scottish but good with languages and difficult to place ethnically. She grew up wealthy and well-educated and in-between bouts of being tortured she is forced to write a confession. As long as she writes she knows she can remain alive.

Verity refers to herself as Queenie and the confession introduces her best friend, Maddie, a commoner who would have never been friends with her except that the war breaks down classes, an interesting theme explored throughout the novel. The Commander Von Linden, whom she compares to Captain Hook, is educated and admires her writing craft saying it is "making use of suspense and foreshadowing." None of the villains are one-dimensional and the complexity of characters are a great strength in the novel. The point of view adds interest as well because it changes from first to third person and allows for the reader to see Verity from others making her a well-rounded character.

References to Peter Pan and other famous classic literature are riddled throughout the pages. They add a unique depth to the plot. I've mentioned Peter Pan but there is also, Edward Lear, Shakespeare, Mademoiselle Defarge from a Tale of Two Cities, Rudyard Kipling, Scheherazade from Arabian Nights, Little Princess, Alice in Wonderland, George Orwell, and all the ones I missed. The historical references about too to Scottish history and the use of the WWII British propaganda campaign that used the slogan "Careless talk costs lives" is ironic. The references are well-done and don't stand out or interrupt the story's flow. They add a depth and irony to many of the scenes alluding to the classic and oftentimes making the theme stand out even more, such as Verity/Queenie being the Peter Pan of the story who is trapped and isolated in Neverland being tortured by Captain Hook. Or when Von Lindon calls her, Scheherazade, the woman in the Arabian nights who must tells stories every night to prevent the king from murdering her. The stories changed the heart of Scheherazade's husband; will they change the heart of the nasty Von Linden?

I did glaze over when Maddie went into great detail on her beloved airplanes. This adds to the rich historical setting but it was too much for me at times and I confess I skimmed those parts. If you love planes then you won't mind a page and a half of descriptions of different fighters or the mechanical guts of them. I wish I was more detail-minded but my tangled wires go limp when it comes to machines. 

Themes abound of friendship, courage, mercy killing, women's rights, harassment, torture in war, survival, and heroism. I was never quite sure of Verity's age but my guess was she is in her 20's. Again. Details. Harumph...

Young Adult
4 out of 5 Smileys

Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

I don't read a heck-of-a-lot of adult novels since I became a children's librarian. That's why I like my book club - it forces me to read one every now and then.  I thought this novel had an awful lot of characters. New ones were hopping on board with less than a fourth of the book to finish. I prefer fewer characters in books but that might be the result of reading so many kids books. That said, there is no denying that Russell is brilliant at developing characters. I guarantee you'll find at least one that you like. My problem is if I don't like a character I buzz through the other characters trying to get to the one I like - something I did with this book. If you are a patient reader then you probably don't have this problem. So.... while I did like the characters, I wished the plot had more twists and was less predictable.

This story takes place in Italy during the Holocaust. The Holocaust. My heart sinks. I know people are going to die. I know they are going to die in horrible ways. I know that fear reigns supreme and that people will turn on each other. I oftentimes approach Holocaust books with dread because I find them depressing, violent, and hopeless. Russell's book was and was not like that. Many of the characters are funny and good ordinary people risk their lives to help them. Russell doesn't really show characters that side with the Germans and turn in neighbors. Claudette is the first character we meet. She is fleeing with other Jewish refugees to Italy that has just surrendered to the Allies. Claudette is hoping for peace, but instead finds Nazis living in cities, Resistence fighters at war with them, ordinary civilians trying to survive, and a man who falls in love with her.

Russell does a terrific job getting you emotionally invested before killing the characters off. Some readers like this type of book. I don't. I didn't want to become emotionally invested in the characters (and I find it harder to when there are so many). So I didn't. I put up a wall and didn't let myself love them. I was having an emotionally exhausting week at work and didn't want to go there. So I force-fed myself the pages of the book and thus have a not-so-good book review. If you want a more well-rounded review on characters and plot, I suggest Ben Babcock's review (contains spoilers). He does a nice job.

Russell is a fabulous writer. I enjoyed her book, The Sparrow, but I didn't really give this novel a fair shake. If you like reading about the Holocaust and enjoy a character-driven book, then I highly recommend this one.

4 out of 5 Smileys
adult

The Harmonica

Henryk doesn't remember his parents faces, but he does remember "their love, warm and enfolding as a song." Thus begins the story of a boy remembering the joy of being with his parents and singing "so off-key we could crack crockery." The family was poor and loved to listen to Schubert. One day Henryk's father came home with a harmonica and taught him to play it. Then the Nazi's came and "like a length of kindling in one stroke, they split our family." Ironically, the commandant at the concentration camp loves Schubert and Henryk plays for him. Henryk muses, "He worked us, beat us for no reason, without mercy. Yet he recognized beauty. I could not imagine how that could be." When the other prisoners whisper "Bless you," Henryk realizes that in this inhumane place his harmonica gives everyone, good and evil, hope; and so, he chooses to play his harmonica with all his heart.

The illustrations, by Ron Mazellan, are gorgeous. In the beginning of the story when Henryk remembers his family the color is warm and glowing. On pages 5 and 6, the lace curtain is blowing in the room while his mother hugs him and his dad looks on with joy. The movement and happiness is captured quite beautifully. It is one of my favorite pages along with the next one that shows a close up of the father and son's hands as Henryk's father gives him the harmonica.

While at the camp the colors shift to cool and are grim and dark, portraying the bleak surroundings. The commandant has a hat on one page with a skull on the brim. Another page shows Henryk playing the harmonica and surrounded in light while the commandant in front of a red backdrop listens to him with his hand over is heart and a blissful expression on his face, a bullwhip in his hand, and dogs at his feet. The white blackdrop bleeds into the red suggesting the music touching the evil and reminding the commandant of what was once good in life. On the page where Henryk wonders how the commandant can love Schubert there is a skull lightly painted in the background above the commandant. The boy is in the front and his striped pajamas look like prison bars but in front of the commandant as well as on Henryk. The picture suggests that while Henryk is in prison, so is the commandant whose life is hollow and bankrupt of all beauty. It is a powerful painting.

While this book is written at a grade 3 level the content is for grade 5 and up. It is a picture book that requires discussion and is not really appropriate for young kids. It would be a great mentor text for teachers.

Reading Level 3.6

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) 5 out of 5 Smileys

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Dear Reader,

I discovered a marvelous machine in the lockerroom that spins water out of your swimsuit. It's brilliant! It looks like an oversized salad spinner.

I also read a wonderful book called, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I know. I know. The title sounds like they threw a bunch of words in a salad spinner. This entire book is written in letter format! Inspired, I decided to write a letter to you about the book. The  goofy book name came about when a group of people on an island in the English Channel called, Guernsey, formed a club as a way to avoid jail time when they broke curfew during the Nazi occupation. I found the letter format discombobulating in the beginning. It was hard figuring out where the story was going. I didn't find the plot absorbing until page 40.

The story follows Juliet Ashton, a journalist and published author who wrote funny, light articles during World War II. Now that the war is over, Juliet wants to write a novel. She follows a story lead in Guernsey and along the way falls in and out of love, makes friends, and discovers the story she wants for a novel as residents describe the horrors and ways they survived during the Nazi occupation.

The letter format allows for many points of view and the minor characters come alive with unique voices and wit. For instance, Susan writes a funny letter to Juliet about her new assistant.

Dear Juliet,

You know Sidney does not keep your letters clasped next to his heart; he leaves them open on his desk for anyone to see, so of course I read them. I am writing to reassure you about Billie Bee's errand-running. Sidney doesn't ask her. She begs to perform any little service she can for him, or you, or "that dear child." She all but coos at him and I all but gag at her. She wears a little angora cap with a chin bow - the kind that Sonja Henie skates in. Need I say more?

Also contrary to what Sidney things, she isn't an angel straight from heaven, she's from an employment agency. Meant to be temporary, she has dug herself in - and is now indispensable and permanent. Can't you think of some living creature Kit would like to have from the Galapagos? Billie Bee would sail on the next tide for it - and be gone for months. Possibly forever, if some animal there would just eat her.

All my best to you and Kit,

Susan (p. 225)

I really liked how this book portrayed Juliet's struggle with finding and creating a story. I could also relate to the author in the Afterword, where Annie Barrows explains how "...Mary Ann could no more endure a day without reading than she could grow feathers..." (p.284).

Okay Reader. Back to the swimsuit salad spinner. Is there anything else miraculous in the swimworld in terms of swim caps? My current rubberized piece of comfort ripped out a chunk of bangs when I whipped it off and I had a burn line slashed across my forehead after swimming in the hot sun for a few hours. And don't get me started on the goggles! Those fogged-up, eyeball sucking plastic circles are like tentacles that latch onto my skin so tightly that after I am done swimming I have deep circular indentations hours later. Yes, they keep the water out, but is there something less torturous?

Your googly-eyed friend,

Barb

:-) :-) :-)  3.5 Smileys