Monday, February 20, 2023

A book and a challenge

The Photographer's Son: Based on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor ~ by Maya C. Klinger, 2022, historical fiction, 119 pages

This World War Two historical novel won the "Yad Vashem" World Holocaust Remembrance Center award for educational enterprises.  It's a book for young readers about a family of photographers during the Holocaust, told from the perspective of the five-year-old son.  World War II is raging in 1941, and the Nazi regime is spreading fear in the hearts of Jews throughout Europe.  Moshe Mandil, a Jewish photographer, quickly realizes that the life of his family will never be the same again, but he refuses to accept this new reality.

Together with his wife and their two little children, Moshe makes plans to board a train with counterfeit documents in hand and regain their freedom.  But his plan goes terribly wrong, and before the train can leave the station, a German officer pulls the family off the carriage, accusing them of the worst crime – being Jews.  Will Moshe be able to save his family?  Told from the perspective of the five-year-old son, this book for younger readers shows how the Mandil family were saved by Albanian Muslims.

Marg of the Intrepid Reader is hosting the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.  We are to choose one of these reading levels:
  • 20th Century Reader  2 books
  • Victorian Reader 5 books
  • Renaissance Reader 10 books
  • Medieval 15 books
  • Ancient History 25 books
  • Prehistoric 50+ books
I'll go easy on myself this year, choosing to read only two books, starting with the one above.  Maybe I'll surprise myself and end up reading more.

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3 comments:

Harvee said...

Love to read stories about Holocaust Jews in Europe being saved by other groups of people. Looks like an interesting book.

https://bookdilettante.blogspot.com/

Helen's Book Blog said...

This sounds like a good book, it's a difficult topic to explain to young kids, but using a 5 year old as the narrator is clever.

Bonnie Jacobs said...

Helen, I downloaded this onto my Kindle for only $0.99 yesterday, if you are interested.