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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
This sincere picture book tells the same type of story as Arthur Miller's screenplay "Playing for Time" in which a person is in the compromising position of playing music for their persecutor (a moral dilemma). It kept them alive but full of guilt. This one has poignant illustrations and beautifully descriptive images in words. This is one of the better picture books about the holocaust--it doesn't hold back or trivialize feelings or events. I recommend it middle school teachers, for sure.
I am not really sure that this book is age appropriate for the picture book age group (1-6) even though it is classified as a picture book.
I feel shaken by it and I'm far, far above the age group targeted.
A little Jewish boy gets a harmonica from his father because they can't afford a piano, or much of anything. He and his parents love music, love Schubert, and the boy learns to play on his harmonica and his parents dance. That is until the Nazi invasion of Poland. He is separated from his parents and sent to a concentration camp where he manages to hold on to his beloved harmonica.
The boy is aware his parents are dead and when the commandant of the camp finds out about the boy's ability to play Schubert on it he makes the boy play for him and gives the boy extra bread. This makes the boy feel dirty and bad. Until he learns that the other prisoners can hear it and it gives them hope. So he plays his little heart out.
Touching and moving and just plain heartbreaking.
I feel shaken by it and I'm far, far above the age group targeted.
A little Jewish boy gets a harmonica from his father because they can't afford a piano, or much of anything. He and his parents love music, love Schubert, and the boy learns to play on his harmonica and his parents dance. That is until the Nazi invasion of Poland. He is separated from his parents and sent to a concentration camp where he manages to hold on to his beloved harmonica.
The boy is aware his parents are dead and when the commandant of the camp finds out about the boy's ability to play Schubert on it he makes the boy play for him and gives the boy extra bread. This makes the boy feel dirty and bad. Until he learns that the other prisoners can hear it and it gives them hope. So he plays his little heart out.
Touching and moving and just plain heartbreaking.
This story is a gorgeous retelling of one man's true experience in Dyhernfurth camp as a boy. He was allowed to keep the harmonica is father gave him in order to play Schubert for the officer in camp. The illustrations are lovely, and the story definitely tugs at the heartstrings without being too graphic about the tough conditions in the camps. However, what I liked best about the story is that it shows that the boy felt terrible about being able to play and get extra bread for it while others were starving to death... and how his guilt was abated when he learned that his music helped those same prisoners.