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Once

Morris Gleitzman

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Apr 08, 2010 Lisa Vegan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, reviewed, young-adult, novel, zz-5star, books-about-books, childrens, z2011, fiction, orphaned-and-quasi-orphaned-kids

This is an all in one sitting type of read, and I did read it all in one day. It’s told from the point of view of a 9-10 year old Jewish boy, a storyteller, who’s caught up in the Holocaust. This story is powerful, compelling, and so very sad, yet somehow uplifting too, and even amusing every once in a while. I’ll be thinking quite a bit about Felix, Zelda, Barney, and some other characters. Felix is a fine narrator and everyone and everything come across very vividly. The author’s note at the e ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

May 18, 2011 Krista the Krazy Kataloguer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-ya, read-survival, read-holocaust, read-historical-fiction

Now, I would have classed this short book as J rather than YA had there not been some horrifying scenes in it. The narrator, Felix, is a young Jewish boy who has been living in an orphanage in 1942 Poland, where his parents left him and from which he expects them to fetch him some day. What makes this such a chilling and hard-to-put-down book is Felix's naive and innocent view of the horrific events around him. It reminded me of John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in that respect. As the ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 07, 2010 Chelsea rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: middlereader, historicalfiction, childrens, holocaust, 2010

I had that awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach from page one. Felix is in an orphanage, but he knows that he's not like the other children - his parents are still alive. They're just having adventures across Europe, trying to figure out why the Polish economy was so bad for Jewish booksellers.

And I guess we all know how this one is going to end, don't we?

Kids' books that deal with the Holocaust can be tricky, because, well, how do you write a book about the Holocaust for kids? Gleitzm ...more

1 like · Like · see review