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theliterateleprechaun 's review for:
The Willow Wren
by Philipp Schott
Pour yourself a glass of chilled Goldener Oktober, sit back and let Philipp Schott’s prose in ‘The Willow Wren’ bring to light his grandfather’s experience through the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. This easy reading and wonderfully penned biography-like account is to be published March 23, 2020.
Ludwig Schott, an odd and introverted child, grew up knowing his father was a lawyer by day and a member of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts) by night. Although he wasn’t aware of what his father did for the party, he knew that his father was extremely devoted to the cause. Ludwig’s mother, a wonderful counterbalance to her husband's extremism, often reminded him that he was born on a Sunday and therefore, was given the gift of understanding the language of birds. It’s this realization as well as his memory of the Grimm’s fairytale of The Fence King that enable Ludwig to escape into surrounding nature as a method of survival. His whole world changes on the day of his 10th birthday, December 4, 1943, as that was the day he was supposed to spend with his father, but the 442 RAF bombers with 1300 tons of explosive ordinance had other plans for Leipzig. Ludwig and his brother are shipped off to join the DJV, German Youngsters in Hitler Youth Camp, while his younger siblings are sent to an aunt for safekeeping. Ludwig recounts his experiences living and learning within the camp, what happened when the Americans liberated their city, and an insight into what it was like living under a Soviet ration system.
You’ll feel like you are reading your grandpa’s journal because Schott has a wonderful way of enlightening his readers by drawing them into the story through narrating unintrusive diary entries. He shows how the extremism of the Nazi party affected people, how resilience was a necessary trait to acquire, and how resourcefulness leads to triumph for the Schott family during World War II.
Thank you to Philipp Schott, ECW Press and Netgalley for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Ludwig Schott, an odd and introverted child, grew up knowing his father was a lawyer by day and a member of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (Brownshirts) by night. Although he wasn’t aware of what his father did for the party, he knew that his father was extremely devoted to the cause. Ludwig’s mother, a wonderful counterbalance to her husband's extremism, often reminded him that he was born on a Sunday and therefore, was given the gift of understanding the language of birds. It’s this realization as well as his memory of the Grimm’s fairytale of The Fence King that enable Ludwig to escape into surrounding nature as a method of survival. His whole world changes on the day of his 10th birthday, December 4, 1943, as that was the day he was supposed to spend with his father, but the 442 RAF bombers with 1300 tons of explosive ordinance had other plans for Leipzig. Ludwig and his brother are shipped off to join the DJV, German Youngsters in Hitler Youth Camp, while his younger siblings are sent to an aunt for safekeeping. Ludwig recounts his experiences living and learning within the camp, what happened when the Americans liberated their city, and an insight into what it was like living under a Soviet ration system.
You’ll feel like you are reading your grandpa’s journal because Schott has a wonderful way of enlightening his readers by drawing them into the story through narrating unintrusive diary entries. He shows how the extremism of the Nazi party affected people, how resilience was a necessary trait to acquire, and how resourcefulness leads to triumph for the Schott family during World War II.
Thank you to Philipp Schott, ECW Press and Netgalley for this advance copy in exchange for an honest review.