Mapping the Bones

December 18, 2017
Yolen (The Devil’s Arithmetic) returns to the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust in this expansive, eloquent novel about siblings Chaim and Gittel Abromowitz, 14-year-old twins connected by a secret language and a fierce love for each other. Their Jewish family has been relocated to the Lódz
ghetto in Poland, stuffed into a small apartment with another family, the difficult Norenbergs, including children Sophie and Bruno. As the situation in the ghetto worsens and Dr. Norenberg disappears, Chaim pawns his mother’s engagement ring so both families can make a dangerous escape into the forest and, eventually, across the border into the Soviet Union. Before long, the children are separated from their parents, by death and the partisans (Nazi resistors) who help them make the crossing. Yolen’s Briar Rose combined the tragedies of the Holocaust with the story of Sleeping Beauty; the echoes of Hansel and Gretel in Chaim and Gittel’s harrowing journey are equally effective, and no less horrific. Interludes highlighting Gittel’s memories and Chaim’s poetry provide glimpses of hope and brightness amid the cruelties the children endure. Ages 12–up. Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown.

January 15, 2018
A Holocaust tale with a thin "Hansel and Gretel" veneer from the author of The Devil's Arithmetic (1988).Chaim and Gittel, 14-year-old twins, live with their parents in the Lodz ghetto, forced from their comfortable country home by the Nazis. The siblings are close, sharing a sign-based twin language; Chaim stutters and communicates primarily with his sister. Though slowly starving, they make the best of things with their beloved parents, although it's more difficult once they must share their tiny flat with an unpleasant interfaith couple and their Mischling (half-Jewish) children. When the family hears of their impending "wedding invitation"--the ghetto idiom for a forthcoming order for transport--they plan a dangerous escape. Their journey is difficult, and one by one, the adults vanish. Ultimately the children end up in a fictional child labor camp, making ammunition for the German war effort. Their story effectively evokes the dehumanizing nature of unremitting silence. Nevertheless, the dense, distancing narrative (told in a third-person contemporaneous narration focused through Chaim with interspersed snippets from Gittel's several-decades-later perspective) has several consistency problems, mostly regarding the relative religiosity of this nominally secular family. One theme seems to be frustration with those who didn't fight back against overwhelming odds, which makes for a confusing judgment on the suffering child protagonists.Stands out neither as a folk-tale retelling, a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust novel. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-14)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2018

Gr 6 Up-"To die was easy, to live was harder." Thus begins the story of Chaim and Gittel, Jewish twin siblings living during the time of the Nazi regime. Almost-mute Chaim and his sister struggle through everyday life during World War II. The decisions they make each day, even those that are minute, will affect their chances of survival. "We have chosen the more difficult path, that of life, now we must walk it." The siblings rely on each other and their uncanny ability to understand the other's thoughts through their own sign language. The relationship will engross readers as they are drawn to the unimaginable circumstances with which the children are faced. Readers may find some of the content depressing and emotional though necessary to maintain the authenticity of the time and setting in which the story takes place. Fans of Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic will be engrossed in this story until the last page. Those who appreciate historical fiction, specifically works set during World War II, will find this an important addition. VERDICT History teachers and librarians alike will want to add this selection to their World War II-era collections.-Megan Honeycutt, University of West GeorgiaHigh School

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2018
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Nazi-occupied Lodz, Poland, 1942. Chaim and Gittel, 14-year-old Jewish twins, live with their parents in a small apartment in the ghetto. Life is made bearable for the taciturn Chaim by the poetry he writes (he seldom speaks because of a stutter). Things become grimmer when the twins' parents are forced to open their home to an unsympathetic family, which also has two children: Sophie and the disagreeable Bruno. When the twins' father learns his family is to be transported, he arranges for them to escape from Lodz along with Sophie and Bruno. The four children are put in the custody of a group of partisans who are to take them to safety. Alas, they are surprised by a company of Germans and killed, leaving only the children, who are taken to a forced labor camp (slave labor camp, Chaim wryly calls it). There they are put to work in a munitions factory until an insane German doctor, a protege of the monstrous Dr. Mengele, arrives, intent on performing experiments on the twins. Using the framework of the Hansel and Gretel story, Yolen does a superb job of dramatizing the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust, bringing vivid fear and suspense to her captivating story. It makes for altogether memorable and essential reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)