I received this book
from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book tells the
story of the author's grandmother, who helped to save a Jewish family
from the Nazi's on the island of Erikousa, Greece. After hearing this
tale, various times in her life, the author decides to see if she can
track down the relatives of the family that were able to escape. As this
is happening in the present, other relatives of the author are shot by a
white supremacist. The author goes back and forth between the stories
of all of the people involved with the book.
Things I disliked about the book: I found this book a
little difficult to read because it jumped around so much from person to
person. I love books that are written from different perspectives or
where all the characters meet together somewhere later in the book, but I
just struggled with this one. It just felt a little disjointed. However, when I was thinking about how I might organize it to be clearer, I didn't really have many good solutions.
Things I liked about the book: With that being said, I thought the story
itself was important and I enjoyed many of the messages in the book. In
so many cases, tragedies are remembered by who committed a crime rather
than survivors or people who did the right thing. Also,
as a person who is involved with genealogy, I could really appreciate
some of the frustrating issues Yvette encountered when trying to
research all of these families. (I can't even imagine how devastating
searching through Holocaust records are if you have a personal
connection with those people and how frustrating it is to know that the
people existed but not being able to find anything due to the
destruction of records.) The creators of MyHeritage also helped in these
searches, which made me appreciate their software and their story a bit
more. I enjoyed "getting to
know" the family of the author and her kinship with the relatives of
the Jewish family that her family helped protect. It is a good reminder
that even if evil always exists, people can bond together in love and do
good in the world.
Our 8th graders study the Holocaust in their curriculum. I know the teacher would not like how the book jumps around, but I know many of the students might want to read this book as supplemental material. I will recommend it to them. I might also see if our librarian would like to get a copy for our school library.
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