Esfir Is Alive

September 15, 2016
The mostly fictional history of a real survivor of Nazi and Soviet atrocities reads more like a history than a novel.When researching her grandmother's history for the adult memoir Bashert: A Grandaughter's Holocaust Quest (2002), Simon came across the intriguing, sparse record of Esfir Manevich, one of the sole survivors of the Nazi liquidation of the Kobrin ghetto in what is now Belarus. This novel constructs a life story for Esfir, only 12 years old during the 1944 massacre, vanished from the historical record after the liberation of Kobrin. Simon's fictional Esfir is two years older than her real-life counterpart; as a 22-year-old looking back after the war, she recounts her life from 1936 to 1946. This adult recounting of the history of a child from ages 7 to 14, combined with constantly layered-in dates, facts, and historical asides, maintains a dry, emotionless distance from Esfir. The horror of Jewish World War II childhood--even for a blonde, pale child who passes for Polish--is nonetheless impossible to miss. Seven-year-old Esfir moves into Aunt Perl's boardinghouse in the nearby city of Brest-Litovsk, befriends the older girls (secular, Socialist, Zionist students) who live there, and grows older in an increasingly dangerous Poland (occupied in this brief period by the Nazis, the Soviet Union, the Nazis, and then the Soviets once more). For Holocaust and World War II completists. (author's note, Yiddish glossary) (Historical fiction. 11-14)

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October 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-This historical novel, based on real people and true events, chronicles the life of Esfir Manevich from 1936 to 1944. Told through the eyes of Esfir 10 years after her escape from the Nazi killing fields of Bronna Gora, the narrative begins with her first encounter of anti-Semitism in her public Polish school. After moving in with her aunt, Esfir makes friends with the young female students who board there and becomes more aware of the political unrest that surrounds her. While readers may lose their footing amid the many geographical, religious, cultural, and political terms and events, they will stay rooted in the everyday triumphs and growing pains of the narrator's development from little girl to young lady, all while becoming more familiar with the facets of pre-Holocaust existence not often taught in class. But while Esfir's life before the Holocaust is richly detailed, the final German occupation of Poland and subsequent events feel veiled and rushed. The historical details are sometimes too dense to muddle through without background knowledge, but a glossary of Yiddish words and phrases in the back pages helps ground readers in the cultural aspects of Esfir's journey, and an author's note shines light on which elements of the story are more fact than fiction. Two uses of the term Oriental, though appropriate for the time period, may prove insensitive given the fictional nature of the work. VERDICT Recommended for collections looking to add to their pre-Holocaust YA fiction.-Brittany Drehobl, Eisenhower Public Library District, IL

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2016
Grades 9-12 Inspired by a three-paragraph testimony from the sole survivor of the Nazi-administered Brona Gora killings of 1942, Simon weaves a diaristic account of one girl, Esfir Manevich, and her impossible journey. Divided into three parts, the narrative reveals the ever-escalating hardships of Esfir's daily life, from vicious school bullies and the unexpected death of her father to horrific pogroms and the eventual liquidation of her hometown of Kobrin, Poland. Through the earnestly observant Esfir, Simon also ruminates over religious faith and the dominant political movements of the period. The journal format, often infused with charts, excerpts of Jewish literature, and Yiddish adages, is employed to full effect. Never didactic, Simon's charactersthe charismatic Aunt Perl, astute Ida, and unprejudiced Aniaare refreshingly complex, and the prose, whether depicting a beloved doll or coffinlike cattle cars, remains unflinching and precise. Though its scope is ambitious (a span of approximately 16 years), this story, like Esfir herself, is achingly alive. An appended Yiddish glossary and discussion questions further enhance the text.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)