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Once (Once #1)

4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 · rating details · 3,508 ratings · 513 reviews

Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn't know anything about the war, and thinks he's only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them--straight into the heart of Nazi-occu...more

Paperback, 160 pages

Published February 1st 2006 by Puffin Books (first published January 1st 2005)

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Apr 10, 2011 Lyndsey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1st-person, pov-primarily-male, about-holocaust, reviewed-2011, reviewed-4-stars, my-top-middle-grade-or-childrens

When I was young 'un, we had this storytelling board game in our house. If memory serves me right, it was called, simply, "Once..."

The basis of the game was to create a story from a card prompt and people had to guess whether it was true or not - or something like that anyway.

As many things do, at first this game went over my head a bit. *swoosh* Because in my everyday life, whenever I would try to make up a story (or more accurately - what you might call a white lie) to my friends or family, th...more

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Dec 22, 2011 TD rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, reading-group

**Don’t spoiler it for the kids**

Morris Gleitzman’s ‘Once’ doesn’t leave a dry eye in the room. This is a children’s book about The Holocaust, a fact that, if you’re anything like me, immediately sets off alarms bells. The schmaltzy epigraphs don’t help: “My name is Felix. This is my story” and “Everybody deserves to have something good in their life”. But what succeeds is a really great kid’s book. Morris’s prose is laconic but hefty, and his narrative moves along at a clipping pace without los...more

**Don’t spoiler it for the kids**

Morris Gleitzman’s ‘Once’ doesn’t leave a dry eye in the room. This is a children’s book about The Holocaust, a fact that, if you’re anything like me, immediately sets off alarms bells. The schmaltzy epigraphs don’t help: “My name is Felix. This is my story” and “Everybody deserves to have something good in their life”. But what succeeds is a really great kid’s book. Morris’s prose is laconic but hefty, and his narrative moves along at a clipping pace without losing equipoise. Furthermore, the voice of our protagonist and narrator, Felix, is pitch-perfect: the stories he tells to shield both himself and other children from the hell unfolding around him register as slightly more juvenile than what I imagine to be the age of the book’s intended readership, and this, at least at the beginning, would allow kids to engage with the incomprehensible reality of Nazi occupied Poland, as it is represented in the book, by recognising the gap between Felix’s stories and the actual situation, rather than diving straight into manifest atrocity. And the power and importance of story-telling is (well, besides the Holocaust) “Once’s” main theme. At the beginning of the novel Felix can stave off confronting reality by inventing stories – his parents have not been killed and will come to collect him, the Nazis are persecuting Jewish books and booksellers like his parents, not exterminating the race entire etc. But as he continues in his quest to find his parents, the truth of what is happening around him begins to impinge, and Felix’s powers of invention begin to fail to account for the cruelty he is witnessing and is himself victim to;

“I tell myself a story about a bunch of kids in another country whose parents work in a book warehouse and one day a big pile of Jewish books topples onto the kids’ parents and crushes them and the kids vow that when they grow up they’ll get revenge on all Jewish books and their owners.
It doesn’t feel like a very believable story.
It’ll have to do for now, though. Perhaps while I’m on my way to find Mum and Dad I’ll be able to think up a better one.”

Eventually, of course, stories can no longer shield him, and Felix loses all faith in this his great talent. At this point Gleitzman stops pulling punches and neither we nor Felix are spared the savagery of ghetto life and the Nazi’s quest to exterminate Jewry. Will Felix recover his faith in stories? Are fictions of any use in the face of barbarism on this scale? I don’t think I’m spilling too many beans by saying that, within the limits of its subject matter, “Once” does have a happy ending. Not only that, it is quite funny. Most of the chuckles come from Gleitzman throwing an incongruous, childish element into Felix’s chain of reasoning, so that, for example, the nuns in the orphanage get more soup than their charges because they are bigger and also because they are holier. But humour creeps into far darker circumstances: squished into the cattle carriages on their way to extermination, at every lunge of the train Felix keeps bumping into his fellow transportees, and each time he does so he apologises, which Gleitzman represents by inserting a “sorry” between every paragraph until someone can’t stand it any longer and yells at Felix to shut up – after which the other children in the group begin with “Are we there yet?”. Another nice touch is that each chapter begins with “Once…”, this leading event stated in a retrospective preterite before the narration swooshes us back into the present (which also lets us know that Felix does survive!)

But this is definitely a kid’s book, and while it is certainly a great and emotive portrayal, the hoarier reader demands more from the too often harped on story-telling theme, and feels the author’s structuring of wit and pathos as too stark. Not that that will save you from needing a box of tissues handy for the last chapter.

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Apr 30, 2012 Heather B. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult-7th-12-grade, historical-fiction, post-2001

Once is about a boy, Felix, who has been staying in a Catholic orphanage for almost four years in Poland because his parents had to go away to fix their bookselling buisness, at least that was what he was told. He was also a really good story teller and he convinced himself through his stories that his parents are taking these wild adventures across the world In truth, his parent put him there for hiding to keep him safe from the Nazis because Felix and many of the other kids at the orphanage we...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Daniel L. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: holocaust-shoah, books-on-the-holocaust-for-young-re

Janusz Korczak as a Pillar of Strength - Then and Now

This well-written young adult novel is by a talented Australian writer, whose hero is Janusz Korczak. In this novel, he tries to imagine the unimaginable, life in the Warsaw Ghetto. It is a novel not only of survival, but also finding the meaning of life in a community through good deeds, even in a setting in which evil is the rule. Janusz Korczak, a Polish doctor and educator who founded an orphanage in Warsaw before World War II and continue...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Lori rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, juvenile, series, war

I have a little bit of an obsession with stories revolving around the Holocaust. So, when this book came across my desk I knew I was going to read it.

Felix is a young Jewish boy who was sent to a Catholic orphanage by his parents in an attempt to keep him safe from the Nazis. Felix believes that he is there just while his parents take care of their bookselling business. Three years later, when the orphanage is visited by soldiers who burn all Jewish books, Felix naively believes that all Nazis j...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Bookguide rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent tale told in simple language of a real-life horror story (although in this case fiction) in 1942. It is the story of how a teenage Jewish boy, left in the care of a Catholic orphanage in the mountains of Rumania, escapes to go and find his parents. Remote as the orphanage is, it has only recently been touched by the advance of the Nazis, and as Felix travels, the extent and horror of what is happening to the Jews in his country gradually reveals itself. His prayers to "God, Jesus, the...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Dan L rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If you aren't really into books, but you know you have to read something, you definitely need to pick up this book right here. This has been one of my favorite books to read because I didn't have to force myself to read it! Although this book wasn't necessarily filled with action, there was always something happening whether it be Felix trying to find his parents or him eating some soup. The author always had something to say about the journey Felix had taken during the reign of Adolf Hitler. M...more If you aren't really into books, but you know you have to read something, you definitely need to pick up this book right here. This has been one of my favorite books to read because I didn't have to force myself to read it! Although this book wasn't necessarily filled with action, there was always something happening whether it be Felix trying to find his parents or him eating some soup. The author always had something to say about the journey Felix had taken during the reign of Adolf Hitler. Morris Gleitzman really did a nice job putting the reader in the characters spot. Once was a great book because of the major detail put into the story but also because of the author's great imagination and creativity.

Once, was a really great and interesting book to say the least. The book starts off with the main character Felix, in an orphanage where his parents left him to keep him away from the Holocaust and the camps. Eventually, Felix was tired of waiting for his parents to come so he decided it'd be best if he were to go out and find them! Now this wasn't a very good idea but, him being a young boy, he didn't really think things through. On his trip to find his parents, he meets this little girl and now he has to take care of her. For the first time in his life, he had to take care of someone other than himself. Felix later understands that many Jews are heading toward the city so he joins them with the girl. He never understood that the Jews were being lead to camps where they would be killed or mistreated. Throughout the book, Felix runs into situations like trying to avoid a German soldier leading him into a van. "Once a dentist stopped me from asking a Nazi officer about my parents and I was really mad at him."(Gleitzman). Situations like these would have gotten him killed in a heartbeat but thankfully, there were many people that looked out for him. Along the way he meets many new people that would in the end, save his life multiple times.

The main reason I enjoyed reading this book so much is because the author put such great detail into every scene that was created. You can almost put yourself in each characters situation and you would be able to tell what he or she was feeling and what they saw at any given moment. I love that the author used his previous knowledge about the Holocaust and about the rough journey some people had to go through to make it out alive. Gleitzman said, "this story is my imagination trying to grasp the imaginable. Their stories are the real stories."(Gleitzman). It must have been difficult to write a book about something you didn't live through or know people that went through it but he made it easy for the reader to understand that he, himself, was trying to imagine what it would be like if he were there at that time which really made the book seem a little more interesting.

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Jan 04, 2013 Dorian rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Totally conflicted about this book. As someone who studies and teaches literary representations of the Holocaust, I often wonder how I will tell my own daughter about it. I'm not against the idea of kids' books about the subject. (I recall being very affected by I am David--I wonder what I would think of it today--I should track down a copy.) Many of my students have read Number the Stars, so I read that a few years ago. It's not bad, though it (perhaps unavoidably) puts the Holocaust to the sid...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Reegan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i loved this book! It is about a young boy named Felix who is sent to an orphanage by his parents and believes that they are coming back to get them. Felix is a jew in the Holocaust, and he is completely clueless. He never thinks that the jews are being killed. He soon enough escapes from the orphanage on a long and treacherous journey to find his parents. On his journey, he passes by a river after hearing several gunshots, he strongly believes that when the lake starts turning dark red, that it...more i loved this book! It is about a young boy named Felix who is sent to an orphanage by his parents and believes that they are coming back to get them. Felix is a jew in the Holocaust, and he is completely clueless. He never thinks that the jews are being killed. He soon enough escapes from the orphanage on a long and treacherous journey to find his parents. On his journey, he passes by a river after hearing several gunshots, he strongly believes that when the lake starts turning dark red, that it is from the blood from the bunnies that he thinks were shot. After his long journey, with limited necessities, he returns to his original house where he does not find his parents, he believes that his parents have gone back to the orphanage to retrieve him. He begins his voyage back to the orphanage when, on his way, he sees a fire in the distance, he begins to get closer and realizes that it is a burning house. He sees the wife and husband, dead on the ground, and finds a young girl near them, she is alive, but unconscious. He carries her into an open field where he spends the night. He and Zelda are then found by a Nazi and are forced to go into a march into the city. In the crowd of Jews marching, Zelda and Felix are discovered by an old Jewish man who sneaks them away into his cave where he is hiding several other Jewish children. They all live happily and become a family until their hideout is discovered by the Nazis and they are taken onto a train where they are being sent to a concentration camp. The train is rotted wood and soon a hole forms on the back wall. Several Jews jump out of the hole and onto an open farming field but several of them are shot by the Nazi machine guns on top of the train. Felix, Zelda, and one of the other girls from the Jewish children hideout take a risk and jump into the open field. Only Zelda and Felix survive, they roll onto the open filed and run away. I would highly recommend this book for mature readers, it has action, drama, suspense and has different emotions throughout the novel.

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Dec 01, 2012 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cover-love, dont-own, 4-stars-wonderful, deep-stuff, library-books, read-in-2012, series, suspense, young-adult

"I got you the boots because everybody deserves to have something good in their life at least once."

This book is both very harsh and real, and the reader receives it straightforwardly and without misconceptions. It touches a subject that almost all of us are familiar with or know about, but it sheds a new light more specifically on the thoughts and grievances of the children during the time. I wouldn't say the story is unique or very "special", but it is absolute.

Our main character, Felix, has o...more "I got you the boots because everybody deserves to have something good in their life at least once."

This book is both very harsh and real, and the reader receives it straightforwardly and without misconceptions. It touches a subject that almost all of us are familiar with or know about, but it sheds a new light more specifically on the thoughts and grievances of the children during the time. I wouldn't say the story is unique or very "special", but it is absolute.

Our main character, Felix, has one very severe weakness, and it is this weakness that causes him to make mistakes about what is happening around him and to his parents. Felix is extremely apt to making assumptions. And these aren't even educational guesses, these are full-on ignorant, naive explanations for the horrors occurring to him and his family. He is so familiar with storytelling that he treats life as one big story and makes up and imagines the things that happen as if it was his own story. Felix puts up walls around him and accepts only what he tells himself. He believes what he wants to believe, which adds a very immature, childish quality to him (we do not know how old Felix is).

Something I thought to be peculiar was how the chapters began. Each chapter began with the word "Once", followed with the usage of past tense in the first paragraph, then switching to present tense. It gave the feeling that Felix was telling us his story from the past and that he turns out to be okay.

I did not like the ending. It was very abrupt and there was no final tie. There was so much build-up and suspense and curiosity about what was going to happen, and then it ends. It had me thinking, "That's it??". Luckily, this is part of a series and I will be looking forward to reading the sequel, "Then".

One more thing...

What I thought was interesting was the friendly Nazi soldier. Why was he so warm towards Felix? Did he know that Felix was Jewish? Did he care? How could someone who could do so much damage to so many people become so acceptable towards a boy who tells funny stories?

---

Once is an exhilarating and very short read. It reflects on the Holocaust and the traumatizing experiences that the adults and especially children had to go through. We might not ever experience what these people did, or even half as much the horror they went through either. All we can do is hope that it never happens to us. We have to tell ourselves that it'll all be okay and maybe, hopefully, it will.(less)

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Nov 13, 2012 La added it

Imagine a young boy named Felix that lives in Poland during 1942, also known as the Holocaust.

He is also in the Jewish faith. His parents had left him at a Catholic orphanage to keep him safe from the Nazis. During his life at the orphanage, he was never educated on the war that was happening outside their doors. His parents told him that they’d be back to bring him home as soon as they could, so Felix waited. He missed his mother and father a great deal because they would read him stories from...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, holocaust-fiction

Like many Holocaust novels, this short book is a powerful, harrowing and heartbreaking read. I finished it in a couple of hours, and plan to read both sequels. The young Jewish narrator, Felix, runs away in 1942 from the Catholic orphanage in Poland where his parents sent him for protection almost 4 years earlier. He's been very sheltered from the realities of the Nazi regime and misinterprets much of what he sees outside the orphanage, as he tries desperately to locate his parents, who used to...more

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Sep 18, 2012 Manda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya, wwii, 2012

I hope this book is being read to elementary school kids so that they can have a child's point of view of what happened in history. I had a teacher in the 3rd grade read our class "Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry and that book still remains one of my favorite books. It also helped to spark my interest in the Holocaust and the people that survived and their stories.

This book reminds you that there were children that lived during the Holocaust and were somehow protected from the horrors of what w...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Steph Bennett rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm sure most people know the book 'Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' by John Boyne, and whilst I was reading this book I couldn't help but compare the two,they did have similarities and were about boys during the holocaust however there was one difference that, despite the fact that I love Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, made me love Once more. Once is a book about a boy who is alive during the holocaust but doesn't know of what is happening, who thinks Nazi's are men who just hate Jewish Books, who goes...more

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May 02, 2012 Alex Baugh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: world-war-2

Once I read a story about a 10 year old Jewish boy named Felix who lived in Poland in 1942 and I felt a terrible sadness as I read.

Once is very poignantly narrated by Felix. He tells the reader that he had been placed in a Catholic orphanage by his parents, booksellers in Poland, and has lived there for three years. He also tells the reader that he likes to make up stories and is considered by others to be quite good at it. Felix always carries a notebook in which he writes down his stories and...more Once I read a story about a 10 year old Jewish boy named Felix who lived in Poland in 1942 and I felt a terrible sadness as I read.

Once is very poignantly narrated by Felix. He tells the reader that he had been placed in a Catholic orphanage by his parents, booksellers in Poland, and has lived there for three years. He also tells the reader that he likes to make up stories and is considered by others to be quite good at it. Felix always carries a notebook in which he writes down his stories and hides it inside his shirt for safekeeping. Once he found a whole carrot in his soup and told himself that it was a sign that his Mum and Dad were coming back to get him. But they never show up. When Nazis suddenly show up at the orphanage to burn the books in the library, Felix remembers the time they destroyed the books in his parent’s bookshop and reasons with himself that the Nazis are only after books. He decides to leave the orphanage and find his Mum and Dad, to warn them that their books are in danger.

As Felix goes along looking for his parents, he starts to tell himself stories about what he sees. For example, a few days after he begins his journey, Felix comes across an empty house, with the kitchen stove still burning and half eaten meals on the table. He tells himself a story about the people who live there and why they have left so suddenly:
In the distance I hear faint gunshots.
Of course. That explains it. They’re out hunting. They must have seen some rabbits, grabbed their guns and gone after them in a big hurry. (pg33)
The reader of course knows why the house is empty and what the gunshots are even if Felix doesn’t.

Felix is a clever boy who not only creates his own stories, he also uses the knowledge he has acquired from other stories he is familiar with. As his search for his Mum and Dad takes Felix towards an unnamed city, he sees a house on fire and the bloody owners lying outside on the ground. Not sure if they are dead or alive, he picks up a feather and holds it in front of their noses: “It is how you tell if people are dead. I read it in a book once.” (pg.55) This is also the house where he finds six year old Zelda and the place where a very scary suspicion of reality begins to occur to Felix:
A little kid. What sort of people would kill a little kid just for the sake of some books? A horrible thought grows in my throbbing head. What if us Jews aren’t being bullied just because of books? What if it’s because of something else? (pg 56)
Felix continues his journey now accompanied by the traumatized Zelda, to whom he continuously tells stories. As they continue on towards the unnamed city, they run into a large group of weary men, women and children walking along the road, all wearing armbands with Jewish stars, and being escorted by Nazi soldiers. At first, Felix thinks they are all Jewish book owners. Forced by the Nazis to join the group, another bit of reality scarily intrudes into Felix’s thoughts after asking one of the men if he is a book lover, then wishes he hadn’t:
Not just because I’ve made a suffering Jewish man feel upset at the sight of a crazy kid. Also because I’ve got a horrible suspicion I know the answer to the question.
Maybe it’s not just our books the Nazis hate.
Maybe it’s us.
When Felix and Zelda finally arrive in the city, they are taken into hiding by a dentist who is already taking care of several other children whose parents have been put on transport trains. The dentist, Barney, is a character modeled after a man who actually did take care of Jewish orphans. Janusz Korczak was a Jewish children’s doctor and well known author. When the Nazis rounded up the orphans he was caring for to transport them to Treblinka, they offer Korczak sanctuary. He refused to leave the children, choosing instead to go to his death with them. In his Afterword to Once, Gleitzman explains that Korczak became his hero after reading about him.

Once is the story Felix tells us about his life as a child in this particular time and place in the history of the Holocaust. His journey to find his Mum and Dad also turns out to be Felix’s journey from innocence to realization about the situation of Jews under the Nazis. The book is geared for readers aged 11 and up and I would highly recommend it for that age group. Younger readers, even those who have high reading levels, may still find it too disturbing.
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Apr 29, 2012 Joanne added it

Shelves: ya

Oh, such a sad and enlightening book. For those who ask, "How could the whole world stand by and convince themselves that the Holocaust [Libyan genocide/Serbian cleansing/...] wasn't happening?", Once will help you identify with the grim resolution of even those who are experiencing it to deny that it is happening. Of course, the protagonist in this story is just a small boy - 6 years old when his parents leave him at a Catholic orphanage in Poland to hide him - and he has had 4 years to constru...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Caitlin rated it 4 of 5 stars

wow- this was such a great book. but i think what i liked the most about it was how different it was.
it reminds me of 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas'- a holocaust book written from an oblivious, ignorant and innocent young boy's perspective.
'Once' is the first in a series of three (then, now follow) and it is about the holocaust. it begins with a young boy named Felix, who lives in an orphanage in Germany. he is jewish, and his parents were taken away by the nazis, all the books in their booksh...more

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Feb 14, 2012 Sofia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Once is a novel set in WWII Poland, and is about a 10-year-old Jewish boy, Felix. Felix is living in an Orphanage, hiding from the Nazi's, with parents still alive. One day, a carrot in his soup changes his life.
That carrot is the thing that makes him decide to escape the Orphanage.

The first place he goes to is his old house -- the bookshop his parents owned. The street was once crowded, but now it's deserted. New people have moved into the bookshop... and they know he's a jew. He runs away.
Sho...more

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Dec 03, 2011 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, series, ya, fiction

Is a Holocaust novel ever an enjoyable read? No, and I actually avoided reading this for a while despite the praise for it because I didn't feel up to reading about it from a child's point of view. However, I picked it up one day and read it in one sitting. It's difficult to write a Holocaust novel that isn't affecting - in fact, I don't know that it's possible, since merely describing the events is horrifying in and of itself - but this one was affecting in a very specific way because of it's n...more

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Sep 11, 2011 Krystl Louwagie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a fairly high 3 stars. It's a very short "novel" (I listened to it on audio-3 discs) about a naive Jewish boy who's parents sent him away to a catholic orphanage in hopes that he wouldn't get caught and sent to a camp, or even know what Hitler and the Nazi's were. This boy constantly tells unrealistic stories to himself to keep himself happy and ignorant about the world, and to make other people feel better about their situation, or to try and improve their life.

For moments, I kind of ha...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Peep (Pop! Pop!) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kids, really-liked, read-in-2011, addicted-to-ya

You know, this may be more of a middle grade book, but it is still very good. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes funny, sometimes sweet, and sometimes horrifying.

Felix really was a great protagonist. You felt bad for him because part of me thinks he knew what was going on, but he tried so hard to make a different reality. It's understandable, but to me, the reader, it just made me sadder! At one point he sees “police” burning books and he convinces himself that they are against booksellers. I can se...more

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May 31, 2011 Iskreads rated it 4 of 5 stars

Favorite quote:
"It could end in a few minutes, or tomorrow, or next year, or I could be the world's most famous author in the year 1983, living in a cake shop with a dog called Jumble and my best friend Zelda however my story turns out, I'll never forget how lucky I am." Pg 150

Introduce the book:
"Once" is about a Polish boy named Felix, who lived in the time when the Nazi's ruled. It is par of a trilogy, but "Once" is my favorite book. The other books are "Then" and "Now".

About the book:
The book...more

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Apr 26, 2011 Leigh rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It's an interesting book--I'm not sure how old the main character is, but it reads as though he is 9-11ish. It is an easy read in the sense that the type is larger and the presentation is not difficult, but some of the subject matter is. As you know, it takes place during WWII, but the main character, who is Jewish, has no idea what is going on or the real reason he was sent to live at a Catholic orphanage. He completely believes that his parents are trying to get their book store back in shape,...more It's an interesting book--I'm not sure how old the main character is, but it reads as though he is 9-11ish. It is an easy read in the sense that the type is larger and the presentation is not difficult, but some of the subject matter is. As you know, it takes place during WWII, but the main character, who is Jewish, has no idea what is going on or the real reason he was sent to live at a Catholic orphanage. He completely believes that his parents are trying to get their book store back in shape, as they told him, before coming back to get him. The beginning part of the book is excruciating at times as you live the boy's naivite with him. After he sees soldiers burning books at the orphanage, he thinks that they are after books so he runs away from the orphanage in order to warn his parents and as he makes his way back to their town, he tries to flag down a ride on a nazi truck loaded with soldiers and is drawn to the sound of gunshots ("must be hunters!") since those people might be able to help him. Bit by bit, clue by dead body clue ('why is the water in the river red?" "Why is this couple lying dead in their yard?"), he starts to realize that maybe this has something to do with more than just books. Through his own ignorance, he ends up in a march of Jews out of town and ends up in a ghetto, in hiding with a man who is looking out for a bunch of children who have lost, or lost track of, their parents. Ultimately, they are caught and put on a cattle train to a death camp, but he discovers some rotten boards in the train car and they kick out a hole. Ultimately, they have to decide whether to stay on the train or jump, risking machine gun fire as well as the inherent risk of jumping from a moving train. He and two of the girls decide to go for it. One of the girls doesn't make it. It ends there, so you don't know what the ultimate ending looks like, but you know that he took matters into his own hands. Also, he reflects on the fact that when he hugged the man who was helping them for the last time, he could tell that stashed in his pocket were some vials of a substance that would cause a never-ending sleep and syringes (they had looted them together earlier in the book, which is how he recognized them), so he knows that the man won't let the other children suffer. So the short story is that once the clues start cropping up more blatantly, it can be hard to bear witness to them (as is apt to be true in a WWII book). But the rub for me is that the character is so naive that the book comes off as being for a younger audience--like 4th grade?--but then there are enough people shot point-blank or found dead that it seems hard for that age reader to stomach. Maybe for the older, but less sophisticated, reader? (less)

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Nov 30, 2010 Marjorie Ingall rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: boys-9-12, kids-9-12, middle-grade-to-ya

I did not want to like Once. I hated that cover line: “Everybody deserves to have something good in their life. At least once.” Damn it, “anyone” does not agree with “their”! Even if I am the last person fighting this battle I will continue to fight it! GAH! But um, more importantly, Once sounded to me like a rehash of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, a book I loathed. Children (and adults) do not need faux-naif, manipulative, emotionally inauthentic Holocaust books. I’d thought Once was about an...more

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Oct 03, 2010 Becky rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Felix Salinger has a secret. It is 1942, and he is living in a Catholic orphanage. Only he's not Catholic--he's Jewish. Mother Minka has agreed to keep Felix safe until his parents, who are book sellers, finish taking care of their bookshop troubles. At least that's what Felix believes. Until the day the Nazis come to burn the orphanage's "Jewish" books. Felix escapes from the orphanage to return to his parents' shop to hide their books so the Nazis can't burn them. But his parents aren't there,...more

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Sep 27, 2010 Monster rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scary-books-for-kids, banned-books

Once there was a boy who told stories, whose parents left him in an orphanage in the mountains and didn’t say why. He lived there for nearly four years, until one day he saw professional librarians arrive and burn all the books in the library. Except they weren’t librarians, and they were burning all the Jewish books they could find, not just in the library there, but everywhere. The boy decided to find his parents, Jewish booksellers, and help them save their books.

What he didn’t know, and read...more Once there was a boy who told stories, whose parents left him in an orphanage in the mountains and didn’t say why. He lived there for nearly four years, until one day he saw professional librarians arrive and burn all the books in the library. Except they weren’t librarians, and they were burning all the Jewish books they could find, not just in the library there, but everywhere. The boy decided to find his parents, Jewish booksellers, and help them save their books.

What he didn’t know, and readers will know almost immediately, is that the book burners didn’t just destroy Jewish books... they were Nazis, bent on killing off the Jews. The narrator’s innocence on his journey to join his parents creates a sense of dread long before he encounters the first obvious results of violence, and his description of events that he doesn’t understand is wrenching to the reader. While he makes sense of the world for himself and for others with imaginative storytelling, what’s most terrifying is when he finally recognizes the situation and is unable to tell stories anymore, when other people need to believe them most.

What is astonishing about this book is that for nearly a third of the story, the main character’s most terrible imaginings are of the destruction of books and persecution of bookstore owners and customers. He is unable to conceive that there’s anything that could be worse, in spite of the trucks packed with unhappy prisoners, soldiers, guns, and burning houses he encounters. Even when he finally recognizes the reality of what’s happening, he clings to his own notebook of stories. His notebook, and his ability to tell stories changes lives and makes tragedy a little more bearable. In the end, the fate of the characters is unknown, although for most it appears to be inevitable. Stories can’t save everyone. But there’s always the possibility that a book, a story, the power of imagination, will save someone, and destroying them also leads to the destruction of hope.

Contains: violence, murder, brutality, book burning, death camps, killing of children, Holocaust setting.
Review by Kirsten Kowalewski(less)

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Jun 04, 2010 Margo Tanenbaum rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, holocaust, 1940s

Recommended for ages 12 and up

I have to say I was more than surprised when I picked up this slim volume by Morris Gleitzman. Wait a minute, I said to myself, isn't he the wacky Australian author who writes those wickedly funny books about cane toads? Not the first author one would think of to write a book on one of the most tragic events in human history. Then I remembered The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, written by the very funny Sid Fleischman, and I knew that reading Once was a must for me.

I m...more

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Mar 21, 2010 Lawral added it

Shelves: arc, ya, middle-grade

Doesn't the whole premise of this book stress you out? It stressed me out. For a book of 163 pages* I had to put it down more than a couple of times because I was just too nervous for Felix. He was so young when his parents left him at an orphanage. This is, presumably, why they didn't tell him why they were really leaving him in the hands of a bunch of nuns, and the nuns certainly didn't tell him either. How could they? How could they explain that to 6 year old Felix when he entered the orphana...more Doesn't the whole premise of this book stress you out? It stressed me out. For a book of 163 pages* I had to put it down more than a couple of times because I was just too nervous for Felix. He was so young when his parents left him at an orphanage. This is, presumably, why they didn't tell him why they were really leaving him in the hands of a bunch of nuns, and the nuns certainly didn't tell him either. How could they? How could they explain that to 6 year old Felix when he entered the orphanage? Besides, if Felix didn't pray to God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Pope and Adolf Hitler like the rest of the orphans, he'd stand out.

It was heartbreaking to watch Felix do things like return to his family's home in what used to be a Jewish neighborhood, try to flag down a truckload of soldiers when he needs help, or pray to Adolf Hitler to keep him safe, as he's been taught to do. He really has no idea what is going on in Poland and the rest of Europe. He has no idea that at ten years old he is a hunted man. His realization that it is not Jewish books that the Nazis hate, but Jews themselves, is painfully slow, and yet I never once doubted the authenticity of Felix's thought processes and take on the situation around him. As Felix's naivety lessens to make room for the huge weight of his new knowledge, it is sometimes hard to believe that he is only ten, or even that he is the same boy that I met at the beginning of the book. This is not to say that Felix's voice lost any of its authenticity, he is just aged so much by what he has to go through.

Even given the subject matter, and the violence does get a bit graphic by the end, this is a beautiful book. The stories that Felix makes up for himself and others to get them through the really hard times, the people that help Felix along the way, and the hope and compassion that Felix just never loses make this an (almost) uplifting story. The ending is not horrific or magically happy. The sequel, Then, is available in the UK and will hopefully be available in the US soon.

Book source: Review copy from publisher

*This page count is from an uncorrected proof and may not match the published copy. (less)

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Mar 15, 2010 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of my 7th grade students absolutely devours historical fiction set during the Holocaust, and she was waiting for this one, standing at my desk, tapping her foot as I turned the last page today.

The main character, Felix, begins the story as a unique (and heartbreaking) unreliable narrator. He's a Jewish boy, hidden in a Catholic orphanage, and utterly unaware of the danger he's facing. When he sets out to find his parents, he sees evidence of the Nazis destruction but misinterprets much of i...more

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Oct 17, 2009 Mahalia chapman rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: eveyone intersestd in storys with a true background

Recommended to Mahalia by: My teacher mrs gates

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. this is a great book if u are into books with a true background.

A boy name felix is in an orphanage after his parents put him there to prtend to be christian because it is around the times in WW2 (world war 2) and he is jewish. In his soup he finds a carrot and thinks it's from his parents saying there coming back to find him. h sees the nazizs coming ( but he dosn't know what thy are) to burn books and thinks it's his parents.

When he discoers ther not his parents he escapes from the orphange an...more

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About Morris Gleitzman

Morris began his writing career as a screenwriter, and wrote his first children's novel in 1985. His brilliantly comic style has endeared him to children and adults alike, and he is now one of Australia's most successful authors, both internationally and at home. He was born in England in 1953 and emigrated to Australia in 1969 so he could escape from school and become a Very Famous Writer.

Before...more Morris began his writing career as a screenwriter, and wrote his first children's novel in 1985. His brilliantly comic style has endeared him to children and adults alike, and he is now one of Australia's most successful authors, both internationally and at home. He was born in England in 1953 and emigrated to Australia in 1969 so he could escape from school and become a Very Famous Writer.

Before realising that dream, he had a colourful career as paperboy, bottle-shop shelf-stacker, department store Santa Claus, frozen chicken defroster, fashion-design assistant and sugar-mill employee. In between he managed to gain a degree in Professional Writing at the Canberra College of Advanced Education. Later he became sole writer for three award-winning and top-rating seasons with the TV comedy series The Norman Gunston Show.

Morris wrote a number of feature film and telemovie screenplays, including The Other Facts of Life and Second Childhood, both produced by The Australian Children's Television Foundation. The Other Facts of Life won an AWGIE Award for the Best Original Children's Film Script.

He also wrote live stage material for people such as Rolf Harris, Pamela Stephenson and the Governor General of Australia. Morris is well known to many people through his semi-autobiographical columns in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald magazine, Good Weekend, which he wrote for nine years.

But the majority of Morris' accolades are for his hugely popular children's books. One of his most successful books for young people is Two Weeks with the Queen, an international bestseller which was also adapted into a play by Mary Morris. The play had many successful seasons in Australia and was then produced at the National Theatre in London in 1995 directed by Alan Ayckbourn, and also in South Africa, Canada, Japan and the USA.

All his other books have been shortlisted for or have won numerous children's book prizes. These include The Other Facts of Life, Second Childhood, Misery Guts, Worry Warts, Puppy Fat, Blabber Mouth, Sticky Beak, Belly Flop, Water Wings, Bumface, Gift Of The Gab, Toad Rage, Wicked! and Deadly!, two six-part novels written in collaboration with Paul Jennings, Adults Only, Toad Heaven, Boy Overboard, Teacher's Pet, Toad Away, Girl Underground, Worm Story, Once, Aristotle's Nostril, Doubting Thomas, Give Peas A Chance, Then, Toad Surprise, Grace, Now, Too Small To Fail, and his latest book, Pizza Cake. Morris' children's books have been published in the UK, the USA, Germany, Italy, Japan, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Indonesia and Czechoslovakia, Russia and China.(less)

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“Everybody deserves to have something good in their life. At least once” — 49 people liked it

“Barney said that everybody deserves to have something good in their life at least once. I have. More than once.” — 10 people liked it

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