Benno and the Night of Broken Glass

Gentle and evenly voiced Susie Berneis narrates the story of Benno the cat, who lives at 5 Rosenstrasse and observes all that happens on the street. A welcome visitor in the apartments in the building, Benno knows how Sophie Adler and Inge Schmidt spend their days at home, at school, and on the playground. He then sees changes taking place as brown-shirted men unsettle the peace of the street. Throughout, Berneis's voice is as quiet as the cat's paws--no raised pitch and no tone of alarm in her voice. Her pace slows such that listeners have time to question why such strange events would be happening--books burned, windows broken, people hurrying along with down-turned eyes, some stores open and some not. Adults will need to listen with children so that a discussion can be started about Benno, his world, and Kristallnacht. A.R. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

Starred review from May 10, 2010
Life seems good for neighborhood cat Benno. He has a warm bed, he's a welcome guest in homes and businesses, and there's neverending supply of tasty scraps. But Benno lives in 1930s Berlin and, gradually but inexorably, Nazism engulfs his cozy world. The Jewish and Gentile girls he has always escorted to school no longer walk together, the scraps dry up, and he must dodge the heavy boots of brown-shirted men who "strutted about with their heads held high." On Kristallnacht Benno cowers in fear as "the air filled with screams and shouts, sounds of shattering and splintering glass, and the bitter smell of smoke." Debuting talents Wiviott and Bisaillon have created a heart-wrenching account of the days that signaled the beginning of the Holocaust. Benno's inability to comprehend the hatred that erupts before him, his attempts to piece together the routines that once shaped his life, and his numbed capitulation to the new reality make him highly sympathetic. Bisaillon's illustrations are especially noteworthy: a mixture of collage, drawings, and digital montage, they movingly depict how a rich and seemingly resilient tapestry of human experiences was lost forever. Ages 7–11.