Post number thirty-six is for Malka Drucker and Michael Halperin's Jacob's Rescue: A Holocaust Story, which was about a Polish family who took in three Jewish brothers from the Warsaw ghetto and hid them from the Nazis
It's a true story although the book resides in the fiction section of the library, but I'll put a spoiler space all the same.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Jacob is one of the Jewish brothers taken in by Alex and Mela. He's the oldest of three brothers. His mother was killed in childbirth of the youngest, David, and his father (and his other male relatives) escaped from Poland when the Nazis took control in order to avoid being deported to work/concentration camps. David and the middle brother, Sholom, are hidden on farms in the country while Jacob is in the ghetto with his aunt and grandmother.
Once Jacob goes to live with Alex and Mela (and their two children, Yurik and Marishka), things go okay, although they have several scares with the Polish police and Gestapo. Sholom comes to stay with them but contracts scarlet fever, which kills him. Alex and Mela decide to move to a larger apartment, but when Jacob contracts scarlet fever, they have to sell it in order to pay off the head nurse so she won't turn them in to the Gestapo. David, the youngest brother, comes to stay with them at that point, and they remain in Warsaw until the Polish Uprising, when Yurik is killed by a German sniper. They escape to the country and Mela's brother's house until they are liberated by the Soviets.
The basis for this story comes about because Marissa, Jacob's daughter, wants to know why Alex and Mela - who aren't Jewish - are sitting the Seder with them. So the story is basically Jacob's telling of it to his daughter.
This was just another look at everyday people who become heroes when they decide to stand up against what they know is wrong and risk their lives to save others. There's a comment made by Yurik in the book that "they're going to kill all the Jews". And Alex replies, "Not all, because we have one." It's unfortunate that not too many people had the same belief - that one life was worthy of the risk - but at the same time, it's good that those who did have that belief followed through. There would have been many more deaths during the Holocaust if those people hadn't risked their lives to save others in trouble.
Post number thirty-five is for Jeanne DuPrau's The Diamond of Darkhold, which is the fourth (and final - supposedly) book in the Ember series.
This book was actually pretty well done, I thought. Better than the third one, but that was most likely because it picked back up just a few months after The People of Sparks, and therefore had the characters - like Lina and Doon - that I'd become emotionally attached to.
Spoilers follow.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
It's wintertime, and Lina and Doon and the rest of the people of Sparks are struggling. Various things have gone wrong, people have gotten ill and died, etc. A roamer comes through and Doon trades a match for a book, which turns out to be for "the people of Ember". He and Lina decide to go back to Ember to see if there's anything useful left there that the people of Sparks can use to help get through the rest of the winter.
When the arrive in Ember, they find out that another family - the Troggs - have taken over Ember. Doon is captured, and Lina decides she needs to return to Sparks for help. Doon manages to get away, however, and takes the so-called "diamond of Darkhold" (Darkhold being the new name for Ember that the Troggs have given it), which turns out to be a solar-powered battery that will power a lightbulb.
Everything works out in the end. Lina and Doon lead an expedition down into Ember to get the rest of the useful items, the Trogg family become citizens of Sparks, Lina and Doon eventually get married (I think), and, several several years down the line, a new city is built on the grounds of the ruined one that Caspar, Maddy and Lina found in People of Sparks, all powered by solar technology (as the book went with thousands of these "diamonds" that Doon and Lina found once they'd escaped from Ember and the Troggs that had been put there for them by the builders).
So basically this book was a nice look at how people can get back on their feet after a disasterous event, and how they can use new and old knowledge alike to accomplish their goals. It was a nice end to the series, and I'm glad Lina and Doon got their "happily-ever-after", so to speak, even though they had to work to accomplish it.
Post number thirty-four is for Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel's Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz. (I told you I liked reading books about WWII.)
I'm not cutting anything because this is a part of our history that I think is sadly overlooked and often forgotten, and I also won't go into too many gorey details, so no worries there. If this isn't your thing, feel free to make use of your back button at this point. :)
This book was interesting because it not only provided a biography of Josef Mengele, but also provided points of view from the twins and other favored kids he experimented on during his time as an Auschwitz doctor. The text about Mengele's childhood and life after the war was interspersed by a sort of "greek chorus" (a term the author herself uses) of the twins' stories, starting, like Mengele, with their childhoods - usually affluent Eastern European families - to their time at Auschwitz, to their attempt to pick their lives back up after the war (many of them immigrated to Palestine and then to Israel).
Two things we know for sure about Mengele:
1) Out of the 3000 twins that went through his laboratory, 2800 of them didn't survive, and those who did still to this day suffer illnesses and unexplained medical problems most likely relating to what he did to them.
2) He is the biggest name of the Nazi system to escape justice - he was never brought to trial or punished for his actions against the people who were deported to Auschwitz (many of which got the casual flick of his wrist towards the gas chambers).
The book says that he died in 1979, but to this day that is still disputed because the remains can't necessarily be confirmed as belonging to Josef Mengele. If he did really die in 1979, he did so by drowning: his grave is in a small town in Brazil, although his remains are not. As of the book's publishing in 1990, they were in England, although I have no idea where they are now. Might be time to do a google search. :D
Anyway, I found this book frankly fascinating, because it had so much information about Mengele - who I have a sort of perverse interest in simply because I have trouble believing someone as evil as he was actually existed - and information about him is sort of hard to come by. This book showed us what became of him after the war, and talked about his journals that he kept and an autobiographical novel he wrote, which I don't know was ever published but would kind of be interesting to look at if it were (Amazon has failed me on this, so I'm thinking it's not available). His family refuses to release his papers publically, so anyone who wants to read about them should probably get this book: the author was given exclusive access to them by a magazine editor who'd been given them for an article he wrote about Mengele sometime in the 80s.
Anyway, this book was, as I said above, absolutely fascinating, and while I had to read it in installments (there's a lot of sadness in these pages, all of which comes from the twins) I'm definitely glad I stumbled upon it while I was at work. I might not be able to read it again (much like my thoughts on Five Chimneys) but it's definitely something I'm glad I read the first time. If you've any interest at all in the Holocaust, definitely give it a read. It will stick with you, that much is for certain.
Post number thirty-three is for Maurine F. Dahlberg's Play to the Angel, which was a Mark Twain Award Nominee book a few years ago, and while it didn't win, I figured it had to be pretty good to be nominated in the first place. Plus, it's about World War II, and I really love reading about that time period, as my various "reviews" thus far probably tell you.
Brief spoilers follow.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
This story is about a young girl, Greta, who plays the piano. Her brother, Kurt, was also a great pianist, but he was really ill and died. Her mother, as a result, can't stand to hear piano music and often makes excuses to keep Greta from playing (she even tries to sell the piano they have, saying they need the money and will buy another one when Greta complains). Greta won't be dissuaded, however, and finds herself a piano teacher: Herr Hummel, who turns out to be on the run from the Nazis because he used his fortune (he was really a famous piano player) to help secure visas and travel plans for his Jewish musician friends. When the Nazis invade Austria, Greta is found in Herr Hummel's apartment by the SS and she realizes she's got to help Herr Hummel escape from Vienna.
This book was an interesting look at what was going on during WWII prior to the start of the deportation and murder of the Jewish people of Europe (and other so-called "undesirables"). Most of the Austrian citizens didn't want to be under Nazi rule (and who would?) and many were disillusioned as to what would happen to their Jewish countrymen if they *did* fall under their control. Hitler had given the Austrian Chancellor an ultimatum: bow to German rule, or be taken by force. The Chancellor obviously chose to step down in order to prevent bloodshed, but as soon as he did, the SS started rounding up and deporting the Jews (this was prior to the Wannasee Conference where the "final solution" was conceived) to various concentration camps in Germany. And while there were a number of people who didn't want to be under Nazi rule - and several (non-Jews) who left Austria as a result - it was not a good idea to say you didn't approve where anyone else could hear you. Suddenly, after the Chancellor stepped down, Austria became entirely pro-Nazi with Nazi flags and portraits of Hitler going up in literally hours. Of course, many people are just willing to jump on the bandwagon in the hopes that it will keep them safe. They're terribly blind to the ugly side of things when it doesn't suit them, you know?
So anyway, this was a nice little book, so give it a read if you've a few hours to spare.
Post number thirty-two is for Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, and what Alice found there, which is actually my thirty-fifth book of the year. This is an astronomical number for me at this point of the year, considering that I only read sixteen total last year.
Very very brief thoughts follow, as this book was so odd I didn't really take a whole lot away from it. At least it's another of those (3) books off my to-read list!
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
There was so much poetry in this book and some of it was so ridiculous. But I did like "The Walrus and the Carpenter", which I knew from the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, and also the flowers. But other than that this book was just strange, from Alice's constant chatter to her cats to the strange chessboard game, to the duel between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, to the strange feast at the end where no one seemed to actually eat anything. Just ... weird. I liked the first book a lot more, although maybe if I'd read them back-to-back I would have liked the second one, too.
Whatever. There are a lot of people who truly love these books and I guess I am just not one of them. Which is fine: to each their own, after all. I'm not sorry I read it or anything, but I've definitely read other books that I've liked more.
Oh, well.
Next up will probably be The Diamond of Darkhold, the fourth Ember book, although I have three books from the library to read, too (including one that's an Interlibrary Loan item, which gives me a little extra time to finish it), and two that I'm still waiting on. I certainly can never say I don't have anything to read!
Post number thirty-one is for D. Dina Friedman's Escaping into the Night, a short-ish story about a thirteen-year-old girl, Halina, who escapes from a ghetto in Poland during WWII and joins other Jewish refuges in the forest, a la the movie Defiance. This book actually heavily reminded me of Defiance, which made sense, as the author says at the end that her writing was influenced by the story of the Bielski brothers.
Anyway, quick spoilers follow.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Halina escapes from the Norwogrodek ghetto with the help of her mother's boyfriend, Georg. Her mother is killed prior to her escaping, and she and Batya, a girl whose family her mother and her had been sharing their home with in the ghetto, escape through a tunnel. They meet up with three brothers, but circumstances separate them until only Halina and the younger brother, Reuven, are left.
Batya is found later (Reuven's brothers have been killed), and once heathly, joins Reuven and Halina on a food raid, during which time the girls get caught by Nazis. Halina escapes, meets back up with Reuven (who'd refused to leave them behind), and manages to shoot the Nazi that had Batya held captive. They return to the camp, only to have to leave again when the Nazis find their camp site (what follows was almost identical to the fighting/fleeing that happens in Defiance).
In the end, Reuven, Halina, and Batya meet back up with Georg, who'd joined the Russian Partisians, and they become a family at the new campsite which is safely protected from the Germans by the Russian encampments around them.
The author says that she didn't want this to be identical to what happened with the Bielskis, and in fact uses other people's names in the place of the Bielski brothers, but I felt very much that it was nearly identical (something that was running through my mind prior to my reading the author's note at the end). This didn't necessarily harm the story, but it also didn't keep me on the edge of my seat, so to speak, as I was pretty sure what the outcome would be thanks to my seeing the film. Oh, well. Still a nice story, and a good way to pass the time this weekend.
Post number thirty is for Tamora Pierce's Trickster's Queen, which is another of those books that's been on my to-read list for several years. This is the sequel to Trickster's Choice, and you definitely need to read that one first, although be forewarned that I had a hard time getting into - and finishing - that one. I'm not sure if it's the way Pierce writes (she does a lot of telling instead of showing, and her writing is therefore kind of, I dunno, dense? Whatever you call it, it's not easy to read at first) or something else, but, while the plot was interesting and I liked the characters, it just wasn't grabbing my attention. The sequel, however, *does* do that, for which I was glad. I was hoping it wouldn't be a struggle to finish it.
Anyway, here are some light spoilers, so avoid if you feel it necessary.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
This book picks up pretty much right after the first one. Aly, a former slave, who is actually a family member of some Very Important People from the rival land of Tortall, is the Trickster God's - Kyprioth - spokesperson, for lack of a better word. She is working for the Balitangs and the raka conspiracy to help bring down the Rittevon throne and place the oldest Balitang daughter - Sarai, who is "twice-royal" because she's royal on both the luarin and raka sides of her family - on the throne. However, lots of problems arise, notably Sarai's unexpected elopement with a man from the neighboring lands of Carthaki. So they turn their attention to putting Sarai's younger sister, Dove, on the throne instead.
There's lots of drama with the current King of the Copper Isles, Dunevon (who is four-years-old), and the Princess and Prince regents acting in his name, including a conspiracy to kill both him and Elsren, Sarai and Dove's younger brother, who also has royal blood thanks to his father, Mequen, who was a Duke and killed in the previous book. (And that was a really long sentence, so sorry about that.) The death of Dunevon turns his guard, Taybur Sibigat, to Aly's side, although this doesn't happen until the almost very end.
There's also some drama between Aly and Nawat, the man she's in love with who used to be a crow but turned himself human in order to be with her, and some other things I don't really want to mention in order to keep the spoilers down, but everything ends up working out in the end, although I didn't like some of the deaths, namely the ones that killed an entire family of the raka conspiracy who you really grow to love in the course of the two books. And yes, I know war is unpredictable and deaths happen, but I still don't have to like it. :-P Anyway, Dove ends up getting the throne, Aly becomes her spymaster (even though she's Tortallan and related to the Tortallan crown), and her and Nawat get married and Aly's pregnant at the end of the book.
Anyway, this book was MUCH better than the first one, even though it had been several years since I'd read the first one (I believe I finished Trickster's Choice in 2005). So if you can get yourself through the first book, give the second one a read, too, because I think you'll enjoy it much more. Aly is a great narrator, mostly because she seems very real to me: she's funny, determined, and fiery. All in all, a great character. :)
Post number twenty-nine is for the second Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles book, A Giant Problem. This one picks up pretty much immediately after the first one, so please read that - and the previous Spiderwick Chronicles books - before reading this one.
Spoilers follow.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
In this book, Laurie and Nick are trying to learn how to kill Giants from Jack. However, Nick isn't really taking it seriously, and when Jack is injured while trying to kill a giant, decides to leave to go live with his son, leaving Nick and Laurie entirely on their own. Laurie sneakily gives Nick's older brother Jules the Sight, so he's able to see the Giants, which proceed to burn down their entire neighborhood. They also enlist Jules' girlfriend, Cindy, who later has to help them get the mermaids (who can also sing and lure the giants into the ocean) a fish that's not native to the ocean they're in (it's meant to be an unsolvable riddle, but the kids solve it).
Anyway, through some cunning and intelligence, they manage to lure the giants into the ocean, thereby getting them off the land. However, they're all in loads of trouble with their parents at the end of the book, and things get worse when they return to the hotel to find Mallory, Jared and Simon Grace on the front steps who tell them that the reason the giants are waking up is to kill something even worse, and now that Nick et al have lured the giants into the oceans, they've got to find a way to get them back on land *and* unite the people of the water (like the nixies and mermaids) to help them against the greater evil which, I'm assuming based on the title of the next book, is the Wyrm King.
And of course, that book isn't out yet, so I have to wait. I hate waiting. :-P
Anyway, this series is really loads of fun. If you've seen the film but haven't read the books, don't let the film sway your opinion: the books are a ton better. <3
Post number twenty-eight is for the first book in the second Spiderwick Chronicles series (aptly named Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles), The Nixie's Song. I actually own this book, but can't find it, so checked it out from the library on Monday. It served me quite well as my reading material this morning as we were passing the empty time due to MAP testing.
Spoilers follow so please don't continue down this post if you're planning on reading this book for yourself at some point.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
This book was interesting because, while it's about two new kids and their family, it incorporates not only the Grace twins from the original Spiderwick books, but the authors themselves, who appear at a book signing which Laurie and Nick attend in the hopes of figuring out how to solve their Giant Problem. Also, neither Laurie or Nick have the gift of Sight until it's given to them by a Nixie, and in fact haven't even seen (or, in Nick's case, heard of) any faeries. Laurie has read the Field Guide, which is an actual book you can check out/buy if you're interested, as well as the five original Spiderwick books, and that's where she's gotten her Faerie knowledge.
Anyway, in this story it appears that it's again time for the Giants to awaken, which happens every 500 years. The problem is that Giants breathe fire if they eat a faerie salamander, which can cause various wildfires/damage/destruction/etc. Nick and Laurie encounter a Nixie, who sets them on a quest to find her missing sisters. Instead, they find one of these Giants, who appears to have burned three of Taloa's (the Nixie) sisters to death. The Giant follows them back to their house (Laurie is actually Nick's new stepsister), where Taloa keeps him entranced by singing to him.
With the help of the Grace twins (specifically Jared), they track down the house of an old Giant hunter, where they find a diagram that shows how to catch them. They follow the instructions and trap the Giant with wire, which slowly chokes him. The Giant hunter's son (the actual original hunter is dead) shows up at the end and kills the Giant by putting a machete through its eye, and explains that if they don't find all the Giants, the entire state of Florida will go up in flames.
I have the second book in this series handy thanks to that library trip I mentioned in my last post, but the third book probably isn't going to be released until later this year (it seems this series is on schedule for September releases: the first was September 2007, then September 2008, and I assume the next release will be September 2009). It's unfortunate that I'm going to have to wait so long: I hate reading work-in-progress series. :-P
Anyway, if you liked the first series of books, you'll probably like this one, too, although, again, be forewarned that it's not finished yet. I'll be interested to see if the Grace siblings continue to make appearances. Although Jared was a bit of a jerk in this book, I do like them a whole lot. <3
So anyway, give it a read if you're looking for something interesting and fast - I managed to read the entire book in a little over an hour. :)
Post number twenty-seven is for Holly Black's Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale, which is the sequel to Tithe, but also includes characters and plot points from Valiant, both of which need to be read (with Tithe first) before reading Ironside.
Brief spoilers follow, so please avoid if you've not yet read this book (or any of the previous ones) and don't want to be spoiled, in the chance that you may read this series at some point.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
So, basically, Roiben has been crowned King of the Unseelie Court. Kaye, drunk on faerie wine and persuaded by two other folks in the coronation crowd, declares herself to Roiben to be his consort. Her quest is to find a faerie that can tell an untruth, which is an impossible quest, as faerie's cannot lie. What Kaye fails to realize is that Roiben has given her the quest because he loves her and wants her safe and away from the war between his Unseelie Court and Silarial's Seelie Court. She thinks he doesn't love her and is basically heartbroken, which makes it easy for Silarial to use her to try to get Roiben's crown (since Kaye knows Roiben's true name and can use it to make him do whatever she wants, including give his crown to Silarial).
However, Kaye later realizes that the duel that Roiben will have to fight in order to keep his crown - and possibly gain Silarial's as well - is going to be between him and his sister, Ethine. She also solves the quest by saying she's the faerie who can lie, and when Ruddles questions her, tells him that if she can't lie, than he obviously is, in which case one of them HAS to be lying. Ruddles can't find fault with the riddle and grants her access to Roiben, so that she's able to tell him what she realized about Silarial's duel.
In the end, Ethine herself kills Silarial in anger over how she was going to use Roiben, and Roiben becomes King of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, splitting his time between the two like Persephone does in Greek Mythology (six months above ground and six months in the Underworld with Hades).
There's also a side story involving Luis (from Valiant) and Corny, a deadly curse on Corny's hands, and the death of Luis' brother. In the end, Corny and Luis end up hooking up (for lack of a better term), so both they and Kaye and Roiben get their happily-ever-afters. <3
All in all, this was a nice ending to the series (Holly has said she'll not be writing any other books in this universe, although her characters can be seen in The Mortal Instruments Trilogy by Cassandra Clare). I'm glad Kaye and Roiben seem to have worked themselves out, even if they haven't completely decided how they're going to split their time between the two courts (because Kaye is now Roiben's consort since she fulfilled his quest) and the mortal/world of Faerie.
I checked out several books from the library yesterday, and have started reading Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce. I hope it reads faster than the first book in the series did, though, because Trickster's Choice was kind of slow and took me forever to finish. I also have the next two Spiderwick books, Through the Looking Glass, and a couple fictionalized books about the Holocaust to read, so am quite nicely stocked, at least for a little while. :)
