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Find out moreAn extraordinarily powerful and poignant novel about people, about caring and about life itself. Utterly compelling as a great story should be and touches a nerve in more ways than one. Other titles by Jerry Spinelli include Love, Stargirl, Stargirl, and Eggs.
A Message From The Author:
Dear Reader:
Why did I write this book? (Readers will want to know, my publisher said.) A fair question.
In one of my earliest memories, I am sitting on the floor staring at a picture in a book. The picture shows a heap of bodies. I turn the page this way and that, seeking a proper orientation. I am bewildered. In my short life there is no reference point for what I see.
The events that became known as the Holocaust have touched me ever since. And yet for a long time I hesitated to write of it. Did the world really need another Holocaust book? And even if it did, who was to write it? What credentials did I have? I was neither Jew nor survivor nor survivors relative. All I have was a ticket stub from Schindler’s List.
Then I came to see that I had every right presume. Because I cared. And had I not been telling young writers for years: “Write what you care about?”
And because I am people, and in the end, in the book, that’s what they are too – Misha and Uri and Janina and Uncle Shepsel and Tata. They are more than Jews and Holocausters and orphans. They are people. Like those in this picture.
How could I not write this book?
Sincerely,
Jerry Spinelli, 2003
This is the true story of Jews and Gypsies in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation.But it is also the story of a street orphan who survives on quick thinking schemes to find food, who believes in bread, mothers and angels. A tragic but beautiful account through the eyes of the innocent, about the Holocaust.
‘A spare and beautifully written book...There is not a false note in it’ Guardian
‘This is a remarkable book - a great story that is funny and moving, but at the same time, quite harrowing’ The Bookseller
ISBN: 9781843624851
Publication date: 01/02/2004
Publisher: Orchard Books an imprint of Hachette Children's Group
Format: Paperback
ISBN: | 9781843624851 |
Publication date: | 1st February 2004 |
Author: | Jerry Spinelli |
Publisher: | Orchard Books an imprint of Hachette Children's Group |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 272 pages |
Genres: | Children's Fiction, |
Collections: | 100+ Children’s Books to Read as an Adult - Grown-up But Never Outgrown., |
Categories: | General fiction (Children's / Teenage), |
Jerry Spinelli is one of the most gifted storytellers in contemporary children's literature. A past winner of the Newbery Medal, his books include the critically-acclaimed Stargirl, The Mighty Crashman, Milkweed and Eggs. Jerry Spinelli lives with his wife, Eileen, who is also a writer, in Willistown, Pennsylvania, in the United States of America.
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