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A review by lawbooks600
Courage to Dream by Neal Shusterman, Andrés Vera Martínez
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Representation: Jewish characters
Score: Seven points out of ten.
I saw Courage to Dream as a new library arrival so after a while I picked this one up. When I glanced the novel, it wasn't quite a novel. Instead, it was a collection of five stories based on traditional folklore centering around a theme of resistance, with four of them being about the Holocaust. When I read and finished Courage to Dream, it was compelling.
The first narrative was about some characters discovering a window in their house that is only visible to them, but from the outside it only looks like part of the wall. The window's nature remains undisclosed until some soldiers busted into the house, revealing it to be a portal to another world. The second one is about Baba Yaga and the house with chicken legs, the third concerns a mythical golem and the fourth concerns the stick Moses used. However, the fifth one was the most intriguing--it revolves around a utopian alternate reality or the best timeline where World War Two ended early, 9/11 never happened and everything changed for the better there. The five narratives in Courage to Dream are unrelated save for the recurring theme and all of them starring Jewish characters. The notes after each section were an appreciated touch.
Score: Seven points out of ten.
I saw Courage to Dream as a new library arrival so after a while I picked this one up. When I glanced the novel, it wasn't quite a novel. Instead, it was a collection of five stories based on traditional folklore centering around a theme of resistance, with four of them being about the Holocaust. When I read and finished Courage to Dream, it was compelling.
The first narrative was about some characters discovering a window in their house that is only visible to them, but from the outside it only looks like part of the wall. The window's nature remains undisclosed until some soldiers busted into the house, revealing it to be a portal to another world. The second one is about Baba Yaga and the house with chicken legs, the third concerns a mythical golem and the fourth concerns the stick Moses used. However, the fifth one was the most intriguing--it revolves around a utopian alternate reality or the best timeline where World War Two ended early, 9/11 never happened and everything changed for the better there. The five narratives in Courage to Dream are unrelated save for the recurring theme and all of them starring Jewish characters. The notes after each section were an appreciated touch.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and War
Full trigger warnings: Death and murder of people, military violence and war themes, the Holocaust, World War Two, fire