Review of The Forest of Vanishing Stars

Harmel, Kristin.  The Forest of Vanishing Stars.  Gallery Books, 2021.

 

In 1922, Jerusza, an elderly mystic, kidnaps two-year-old Inge Juttner from her wealthy parents in Berlin because she feels the child’s parents are “bad people”.  Jerusza changes Inge’s name to Yona, which means dove, because she has a dove-shaped birthmark on her wrist.  She raises Yona in the forests of Eastern Europe as her own child.  She only has two rules Yona must follow—she must always obey Jerusza, and she must stay hidden in the forest, away from men who might hurt her.  Not only does Jerusza teach Yona how to survive in the forest, but she also teaches her practical things—more than five different languages and about the world’s religions.

 

In 1942, Jerusza passes away, and Yona is left on her own.  One day, she comes upon two men, one of whom is unsuccessfully trying to catch fish with his bare hands.  She discovers the men are part of a larger group of Jews who fled into the forest when Jews in their Polish town were being killed by the Nazis.  Yona joins their group and teaches them how to live in the forest and survive during the harsh winters.  After a romantic interest betrays her, Yona decides to leave.

 

Yona enters a German-occupied town and becomes friendly with a group of nuns, who have been quietly helping Jews escape from the country.  However, after she reconnects with a relative from her past, which leads to another betrayal, she goes back into the forest.  She realizes that everything that Jerusza had been teaching her was so she could help the Jews survive until World War II was over.

 

Kristin Harmel, who also wrote The Book of Lost Names, has written another mesmerizing World War II tale of courage and survival.  She has based her novel on true stories—that of the nuns, the Blessed Martyrs of Nowogrodek, and of the thousands of Jews who actually lived in forests during World War II.  She has peppered her novel with information about survival techniques, medicinal herbs, and shelter construction, all of which she researched extensively.  She even interviewed Aron Bielski, a 93-year-old World War II survivor, who survived the war by living in the forests.

 

The characters are well fleshed-out and developed.  Both Yona and Jerusza are strong, capable women, although rather untrusting of others.  Yona, having not grown up with her parents, feels she has missed out on family and deeply yearns to have one of her own.  Even though Jerusza lived to be very old, she was one tough cookie!  Both she and Yona have the ability to sense things, especially danger.

 

The Forest of Vanishing Stars is an extraordinary story, a tale of survival and hope.  It can be enjoyed by both adults and teens.  Give it to readers who read historical fiction and those who like reading about World War II.  I highly recommend it for high school and public libraries and give it five out of five fleur de lis!

 

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for allowing me to read and review this book.

Review of All the Little Hopes

Weiss, Leah.  All the Little Hopes.  Sourcebooks, 2021.

 

In 1943, thirteen-year-old Allie “Bert” Tucker is sent by her poor father on a bus trip across North Carolina to stay with her pregnant Aunt Violet and help with her forthcoming baby.  However, through a series of circumstances, Bert ends up living with thirteen-year-old Lucy “Lu” Brown and her large family, instead.  Not only do Lu and Bert become best friends, but they also become sisters.  Because Bert is illiterate, Lu and her mother teach Bert how to read, write, and do arithmetic.

 

The Brown family lives on a tobacco farm in Riverton, NC and also has a thriving beekeeping and honey business.  In exchange for cane sugar and cash, the Browns agree to provide the US government with beeswax and honey from their hives.  Not only do family members help with working the hives, but neighbors and close friends chip in, as well.  

 

A Nazi POW camp is built on the outskirts of Riverton, and many of the townspeople are distrustful of the prisoners.  One Riverton resident, Terrell Stuckey, is particularly disturbed and sits outside the camp whittling all day.  Three of the prisoners are working on the Brown’s farm as part of their rehabilitation.  When a double murder takes place at the camp, everyone thinks that Terrell did it, but he can’t be located.  

 

Terrell Stuckey is the third man to go missing in Riverton.  Lu and Bert, who are avid Nancy Drew fans, decide to try to find out what has happened to the men.  They engage the help of Trula Freed, an eccentric neighbor, and Lu’s rich Aunt Fanniebelle and her Ouija board, which the girls name “Weegee”.  However, the mysteries remain unsolved until a close friend’s death, when Lu, Bert, and Helen, one of Lu’s older sisters, make a surprising discovery.

 

All the Little Hopes is a delightful read, filled with nostalgia, small town life, and love of family and friends.  The book contains short chapters and is told in the alternating voices of Lu and Bert.  The novel sails along while World War II is going on in the background, quietly affecting the town and the Brown family.

 

The characters, even the minor ones, are extremely well-thought out.  I love the whole Brown family, but especially the parents, Minnie and David.  They are caring parents and calming forces in their children’s lives.  Several of the characters very quirky, which adds to the charm of the novel.  Trula Freed, the town’s mystic, reads tarot cards, provides medicine for a variety of ailments, and seems to be clairvoyant.  Lu’s Aunt Fanniebelle, who is quite wealthy and lives in a mansion, gets her words mixed up, which makes her stories hilarious.  I also love that Lu and her whole family are bibliophiles, and they turn Bert into one, too.

 

Readers will be able to tell that Ms. Weiss has done her research, as she inserts historical anecdotes into the story.  The POW camp in the book is based on a similar one she was able to locate in Williamston, NC.  Other factual truths in the novel are the World War II beeswax contracts, the disappearance of band leader Glen Miller, the 1918 Spanish Flu, and folklore wolpertingers from Bavaria.  She has also provided recipes in the back of the book matching those in the novel.

 

There is a “Conversation with the Author” in the back of the book, where the author answers questions about her life growing up, beekeeping, Nancy Drew, the importance of reading, and the development of her characters.  She has also provided a “Reading Group Guide” containing questions and author’s notes explaining how the book came about.

 

All the Little Hopes is a charming, heartfelt, and touching read.  While it is written for young adults, it would be enjoyed by adults, as well.  Hand this book to readers who enjoy stories about family and friendship and World War II.  I highly recommend it for high school and public libraries and give it five out of five fleur de lis!

 

Thank you to Edelweiss and Sourcebooks for allowing me to read and review this book!

Review of The Woman With the Blue Star

Jenoff, Pam.  The Woman With the Blue Star.  Park Row Books, 2021.

 

Nineteen-year-old Sadie Gault is living with her parents in the Jewish quarter in Krakow, Poland in 1942.  When the Germans come to round up the Jews, the Gaults and another family, the Rosenburgs, escape down into the sewers under the city.  While they are being led through the tunnels, Sadie and her pregnant mother, Danuta, watch in horror as Mr. Gault falls into the water and gets carried away in the current.  The living arrangements in the sewer chamber for Sadie, her mother, and the Rosenbergs are only supposed to be temporary.  However, the two families end up living there for months after Pawel, the sewer worker who led them there, is arrested by the Polish police.  After Pawel’s arrest, the two families have to figure out how they will get food and supplies without his help.  In the meantime, Sadie and Saul Rosenberg, the Rosenbergs’ son, begin a relationship when they start reading books together.

 

While Gaults and Rosenbergs are trying to survive underneath Krakow, nineteen-year-old Ella Stepanek is stuck living with her Austrian stepmother, Anna, in another part of the city.  Her father has died fighting in the Polish army and has left everything to Anna.  Much to Ella’s dismay, Anna is entertaining and consorting with Nazi soldiers right in their home.  One day, Anna sends Ella to the market, and Ella notices Sadie looking up at her through a sewer vent.  Ella and Sadie become friends, and Ella, with the help of her boyfriend, Krys, who is part of the Resistance, try to provide food for the sewer families.

 

More complications for the Gaults and Rosenbergs begin after Danuta gives birth to her daughter.  Afraid that the baby’s cries will give away the families’ location, Danuta leaves the sewer to take the baby to a hospital and never returns.  The two families continue to have to make decisions that will affect their survival during the war.

 

The Woman with the Blue Star takes place in Krakow, Poland, both above and below ground.  It is told in alternating chapters in first-person by Sadie and Ella.  Other parts of the story are filled in by Pawel and Lucy, Sadie’s sister, when they finally meet years later.

 

Pam Jenoff is a masterful world-builder.  Her descriptions of life in the sewers are horrifying and based on events that actually happened.  Readers will feel they are smelling the foul, stagnant water and hearing the nasty rats scurrying in the dark.  In addition, the depiction of life in Krakow during the war shows how the city was affected and how Jews were treated during this time.

 

The book shows both the good and bad of the human race during World War II.  Although they are from different walks of life, Sadie and Ella make a real connection and quickly become good friends.  Both girls have to reach down deep and find their inner strength to help others.  This fervent story is one of hope, survival, struggles, friendship, loss, and family.

 

Hand this book to readers who enjoy reading fiction stories about World War II and those who like tales of survival and adversity.  Although it is written for adults, it would be a good young adult crossover novel, as teens would also enjoy it.  I recommend it for high school and public libraries and give it four out of five fleur de lis!

 

Thank you to NetGalley, Park Row Books, and Harlequin for allowing me to read and review this novel.

Review of The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel

Harmel, Kristin.  The Book of Lost Names.  Gallery Books, 2020.

 

In 1942, while babysitting a neighbor’s children, Eva Traube secretly sees her father, who is a Polish Jew, arrested when the Nazis begin picking up the Jews in Paris.  Realizing the danger, she and her mother flee to Aurignon, a city in the Free Zone of southern France, while Eva works on a plan to free her father.   Instead, Eva becomes part of the French Resistance of World War II, working with a covert forging group that creates documents to help Jewish children escape across the French border to Switzerland.  The forging ring is run in the library of the Eglise Saint-Alban Church and is headed by Pere’ Clement, a Catholic priest.  Nearly the whole town is involved in the underground forging ring, and many of them have an alias just in case they are caught.

 

Eva is trained by another forger, Remy, and they decide that the children who are taken across the border need to be remembered by their real names.  They begin encoding the children’s names and aliases in a rare book, Epitres et Evangiles.  Eventually, Remy and Eva fall in love, and Remy begins bringing children across the border instead of forging documents.  The Nazis finally learn of their secret operation, and the pair flees Aurignon, escorting children into Switzerland.  In the process, Remy and Eva part ways.

 

Years later, in 2005, Eva Abrams, now widowed, is working as a part-time librarian at the public library in Winter Park, Florida.  She notices a New York Times newspaper article about a man named Otto Kuhn, a librarian who lives in Berlin.  His life’s mission is to return a million books looted from libraries by the Nazis, to their rightful Jewish owners.  In the article, she sees her book, Eptres et Evangiles, and knows she must travel to Berlin to obtain the book.  She hopes that Remy has left a coded message for her in the book and wants closure from World War II, which took so much from her and her family.

 

In The Book of Lost Names, Kristin Harmel has combined World War II history and the French Resistance with romance, suspense, and mystery.  The story is compelling, hopeful, and filled with hope and perseverance.  It is an honest portrayal of what people’s lives are like when their freedoms are taken away.  It is evident that the author did meticulous research on the forging rings and the libraries that were looted during World War II.

 

Not just Eva, but all the female characters, including the boarding house owner and other townspeople, are portrayed as strong and courageous.  It is heartwarming and astonishing to see how a whole Catholic town works together to benefit hundreds of innocent Jewish children.

 

This novel received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.  Hand it to readers who enjoy historical fiction and to fans of World War II stories.  I highly recommend it for public libraries and give it five out of five fleur de lis!

 

Thank you to Edelweiss and Gallery Books for allowing me to read and review this book.

Review of The Art Collector's Daughter: A Stylish Historical Thriller by Derville Murphy

Murphy, Derville.  The Art Collector's Daughter: A Stylish Historical Thriller. Poolbeg Press, 2020.

During the 1940's Paul Vasseur is the owner of an art gallery in Paris.  His personal collection of fine art includes paintings by Picasso, Braque, Rousseau, and others.  Before the Germans can lock down Paris, Paul and his wife, Hanna, secretly send their young daughter, Sylvie, to live with Paul's friend, Daniel Courtney, and his family in Ireland.  Paul and Hanna try in vain to escape to safety, but they are caught and sent to a German concentration camp.

Sylvie grows up with Daniel’s sons, Nicholas and Peter, and Daniel’s wife, Nora.  She longs to go to college and study art, but is not allowed to do so.  Instead, Daniel says there are no funds for art school and enrolls Sylvie in secretarial courses, which she dislikes intensely.  Unfortunately, she  becomes pregnant, and her unborn child’s father does not offer to marry her.  She marries a close friend, and life is terribly hard for the threesome.

 

Sometime later, Sylvie befriends Jennifer and Maxwell Ambrose, and this couple nurtures her as a young artist and helps her art career along.  She is just beginning to enjoy both her personal and professional life when she dies suddenly in a drowning accident.

 

In the 1980s, Nicholas Courtney hires Claire Howard, a young art historian, to catalog Sylvie’s works of art.  He also employs his nephew, Sam, to help Claire.  While Claire discovers just how talented Sylvie was, she also uncovers family secrets that will put her life in grave danger.

 

In this debut novel by Derville Murphy, the author has written a compelling novel about the art world during and after World War II.  The novel is written in alternating time periods, moving between the war, the 1960s, and the 1980s and between the places of Paris and Ireland.  There are luxurious descriptions of the countryside in Ireland and bustling scenes of Paris.

 

Although the novel is billed as a “historical thriller”, it does not read like a thriller.  It feels more to like a historical mystery, instead.  The action is well-paced, and there are a few surprising moments.  Some of the dialogue between the characters seems stilted and forced and goes on far too long in places.  I would have liked to know more about Paul and Hanna lives and Paul’s relationships with the artists he dealt with.  The plot contains some heavy themes—mental illness, womanizing, abuse, and death, among others, which are worked deftly into the story. 

 

Is it easy to see how the author has drawn on her experiences as an art consultant and artist in writing her first novel.  Hand The Art Collector’s Daughter to art lovers and readers who enjoy mysteries and historical fiction.  I recommend it for public libraries and give it four out of five fleur de lis!

 

Thank you to Book Sirens and Poolbeg Press for allowing me to read and review this book.

Reviews of Two Amazing World War II Novels

Cameron, Sharon.  The Light in Hidden Places.  Scholastic, 2020.

Stefania “Fusia” Podgorska, now sixteen, has been living with the Jewish Diamant family for the past three years while working in their store.  The Diamants love Fusia, and she is even secretly engaged to one of their sons, Izo, though she is Catholic.  Then, World War II begins, and the Nazis invade their Polish town of Prezemysl and force the Diamant family into the ghetto.  Fusia discovers that her parents have been put in a labor camp, and her siblings, with the exception of her abandoned six-year-old sister, Helena, are scattered all over Poland.  Fusia takes in “Hela” and keeps living in the Diamants’ apartment. Fusia eventually agrees to hide one of the Diamant brothers, despite realizing she could be killed by the Germans for helping Jews.  Soon one Jew turns into thirteen Jews, and Fusia must find creative ways not only to hide them, but to also feed them without attracting the attention of the Nazis.  To make matters worse, the German army commandeers her apartment to house two German nurses who entertain German officers frequently in their room.  

This well-researched historical fiction novel is a true story of courage, heroism, and resourcefulness.  The book is based on the unpublished memoir of Stefania Podgorska and interviews with family members.  The world building is extraordinary; readers will feel they are actually living in World War II Poland through the events and places of that time period.  The book is narrated by Fusia, who lives in constant fear of outsiders finding out that she is harboring Jews in her home.  All the characters, even the minor ones, have clear-cut personalities, and Fusia is a strong female heroine.

Stefania and Helena were honored in 1979 by the World Holocaust Remembrance Center for their heroism in saving Jews during World War II.  This novel would be appreciated by adults, as well as teens.  Hand it to readers who enjoy historical fiction and stories of survival.  I highly recommend it for public, middle school, and high school libraries.

Hesse, Monica.  They Went Left.  Little, Brown, 2020.

Eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman lives in Holocaust death camps for three years, wondering where her younger brother, Abek is.  Sadly, she knows the rest of her family has been killed.  When Soviet forces liberate the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, Zofia is sent to a hospital to recover.  Although her physical wounds heal, her mind is still badly broken.  After being released from the hospital, she sets out to find Abek, traveling through Poland and Germany, inquiring as to his whereabouts at displaced persons camps along the way.  She finally ends up staying at U.N.-run Foehrenwald, a displaced persons camp near Munich.  At the camp, she rooms with other Jewish women and falls in love with Josef, a man also living there.  Everyone in the camp is trying to put their lives back together, and many are looking for missing relatives.  While searching for Abek, Zofia sees that even the smallest experiences can bring hope into others’ lives.

They Went Left is not your typical World War II story.  It is the story of what happens to people after the war is over, and they must pick up the pieces of their broken lives.  While Zofia is a strong female character, she is an unreliable narrator because her memory is full of holes, and she is often confused.  She cannot actually remember the last time she saw Abek, her brother.  This is likely due to the trauma she has experienced while living in several death camps.  However, she has resilience and perseverance, and comes to realize that there is hope and healing will come.  The women she lives with in the Foehrenwald help her to see that she will have a life after the war.

This is the third novel that the author has set during World War II, and would also be enjoyed by adults.  Give this novel to readers who like historical fiction, romance, and mystery.  I highly recommend it for public and high school libraries.

I give both of these incredible World War II novels five out of five fleur de lis!

Review of Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Sepetys, Ruta.  Salt to the Sea.  Philomel, 2016.

In the winter of 1945 in Europe, World War II is nearly over, but many citizens of the eastern Baltic States are fleeing the advance of the Russian army, led by Joseph Stalin, to what they hope is freedom.  Travel conditions across Europe are brutal—sub-freezing temperatures, snow, rocky terrain, and little or no food and shelter.

Many refugees band together to make the trek to evacuation boats waiting at Gotenhafen on the Baltic Sea in Poland.  One such group includes Joana, a young nurse from Poland, Emilia, a pregnant fifteen year-old Lithuanian girl, and Florian, an artist from Prussia.  Other members of the group include a small boy, an elderly shoemaker, and a blind girl.  Amazingly, they all receive passage on the Wilhelm Gustloff, formerly a cruise liner, now serving as a transport ship. 

On the ship they encounter Alfred, a teenaged German soldier, who is a delusional coward, making up fantasies in his head and shirking his duties by hiding in the bathroom.

The ship, which is well over capacity, leaves the port, only to be hit hours later with three torpedoes from a Russian submarine.  The ship’s inhabitants either spill out into the icy Baltic Sea or sink with the ship.  Sadly, only about one-tenth of the occupants survive.

Ruta Sepetys is known for her well-researched historical novels, and Salt to the Sea is no exception. Although the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff resulted in far greater casualties (more than 9400) than the Titanic, it is not often remembered, mainly because it was overshadowed by all the other tragedies that occurred during World War II.   Ms. Sepetys has given voice to thousands evacuees, many of them children, who perished in the largest maritime disaster in history.

The book is told in four alternating teen viewpoints, that of Joana, Emilia, Florian, and Alfred.  Readers are able to see the horrors of war as the characters' backstories unfold in short chapters written in beautiful prose.  

Even though Salt to the Sea is intended for a young adult audience, it could easily be an adult crossover.  It will make its debut tomorrow, February 2, 2016.  I highly recommend it for high school and public libraries and give it five out of five fleur de lis!

Reviewer’s Note:  The copy reviewed was an e-galley from Edelweiss.

Review of Once by Morris Gleitzman

Once by Morris Gleitzman; Henry Holt, 2010, c2005.

Felix, the son of Jewish bookstore owners, is dropped off at a Polish Catholic orphanage when he is six-years-old. They explain to Felix that he must stay at the orphanage while they expand their book business. Nearly four years later, he is still waiting for his parents to return, and World War II is in full swing. One day, Felix sees strange, ominous men burning books in the courtyard of the orphanage and is afraid that these strangers are looking for his parents in order to burn their books. Determined to warn his parents, he escapes from the safety of the orphanage where he has been sheltered from the war and the Holocaust. On his journey, Felix is shot at by Nazis, finds out new owners have moved into his family home, and is called names and chased out of town. When he reaches the ghetto, where he thinks his parents have gone, he saves a young girl and experiences more Nazi cruelty. Shortly thereafter, he is befriended by Barney, a dentist, who takes Felix and some other children into hiding. Ultimately, the group is discovered and forced onto a train bound for the death camps.

What a riveting story! Told through the eyes of Felix, who happens to be a fabulous writer and teller of his own stories, readers see how being sheltered in an orphanage has led to Felix’s naiveté and ignorance about the war, the Holocaust, and the Nazi movement. He has been led to believe, even by the priest, that Adolf Hitler is a kind man. The way that Felix describes the unfolding events has a humorous side, even though they deal with a depressing subject. He is shocked when he sees Nazis killing innocent people “over books”! Every chapter begins with “Once”…as Felix describes something that has happened to him. The title of the book actually comes from a line that Barney utters: “Everyone deserves to have something good in their life at least once.” The author indicates in endnotes that Barney is a veiled reference to Janus Korczak, who actually helped run an orphanage for Jewish children for many years.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. Most accounts of the Holocaust are written through the eyes of an adult. It is refreshing to see the same events through the eyes of a child. I highly recommend this book for middle school, high school, and public libraries! Note* Once was previously published in 2005 in Australia. The cover art is stunning!