An 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.
A stunning novel of the Holocaust from Newbery Medalist, Jerry Spinelli. And don't miss the author's highly anticipated new novel, Dead Wednesday!
He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Filthy son of Abraham.
He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself, and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels.
He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi, with tall, shiny jackboots of his own-until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind.
And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.
Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable-Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II-and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young Holocaust orphan.
‘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
Author
About Jerry Spinelli
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.
