Review by New York Times Review
MY JEWISH GREAT-GRANDPARENTS made the fortunate decision to leave Europe in the first decade of the 20th century, so my closest personal connection to the Holocaust was through my high school French teacher, Annette Berman. Annette was a 15-year-old Jewish schoolgirl living in Paris when World War II began. As restrictions and fear mounted during the German occupation, she and her family hid for weeks in her best friend's apartment; then, using borrowed identity cards, they traveled to a remote village where Annette spent the next two years disguised as a Roman Catholic, delivering messages and explosives for the French Resistance on her bicycle. Reading the heartstopping journeys of the child survivors in "Hidden," "Hidden Like Anne Frank" and "The Whispering Town" drove home to me that Annette's incredible story is far from unique. The fictional account of the French child Dounia Cohen in "Hidden" is the most achingly familiar. "Hidden," written by Loïc Dauvillier, is a graphic novel, and the vibrant and respected tradition of that genre in France is well represented here by the illustrator Marc Lizano's exquisite attention to period detail and the subtle, complementary shading of the colorist Greg Salsedo. Dounia, who is about 6, finds herself suddenly shunned by teachers and classmates the first time she wears to school the obligatory yellow star identifying her as Jewish. After the police take her parents away in a frightening nighttime raid, neighbors hide her in their apartment. When that becomes too dangerous, Dounia escapes to a farm in the French countryside, where she stays for the duration of the war. The ultimately hopeful story, translated from its original French by Alexis Siegel, is told in flashbacks by the elderly Dounia to her granddaughter, Elsa. Though readers may be tempted to race through to find out what happens, Lizano's illustrations reward careful observation, as in a sequence in which a "photograph" of Dounia's missing parents appears in the background of some of the frames on a page, bigger each time, until it fills an entire frame. It's a quiet, moving depiction of Dounia's increasing anxiety about their fate. Also in translation - from Dutch, this time - is "Hidden Like Anne Frank: Fourteen True Stories of Survival," by Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis, in which Holocaust survivors narrate their wartime experiences with straightforward and often heartbreaking honesty. The first account belongs to Prins's mother, who inspired the collection. All these hidden children survived the war, but not all their families did, and there's a tremendous range of emotion expressed here. Like Anne Frank's, these few voices stand out and speak for the millions whose stories remain untold. Laura Watkinson's nuanced translation makes each storyteller's voice distinct, and the text is enhanced by photographs. My favorite is the picture of a wedding group taken on the day the war ended in Europe, showing all the people who had hidden in a single household, as well as the couple who hid them; the two resistance workers who helped; and the infant daughter of the bridal pair, who met while in hiding. These accessible stories, full of hard truths, are touching, thrilling and agonizing by turns. Be warned: Parents may find "Hidden" more painful to read than children will. Rounding out this literary threesome of resistance and escape is "The Whispering Town," a picture book written by Jennifer Elvgren and illustrated by Fabio Santomauro. The setting is a Danish fishing village, but one of the book's charms is how little context you need to understand it: There's a war, and Anett's family is hiding refugees and sneaking them to safety by boat to neutral Sweden. Anett's job is to bring food to the Jewish mother and child hidden in her basement, where she finds her way down the dark stairs by following the sound of their whispers. When Anett's father worries that the refugees might get lost in the dark when they flee to the harbor, Anett suggests the whole village whisper directions to them as they go. The publisher of "The Whispering Town" recommends the book for children ages 7 to 11, but it feels appropriate for reading to very young children as an introduction to the subject of the Holocaust. It's definitely the least harrowing of the three books. The threat to the escaping mother and child is only hinted at in the bales of barbed wire that accompany the Nazi soldiers whenever they appear, in the worrying absence of the father in the Jewish family group, and in the villagers' ominous, repeated warning: "Stay safe." Santomauro's thoughtful illustrations, with their restrained colors, subtly remind the reader of the village's determined solidarity. Reading these books, a few jolting truths hit me. The most shocking was that all the survivors were, at some point, simply lucky. Their hiding places were overlooked in a raid, or they weren't home when it happened. Every one of them, including my French teacher, spent the war using a false name; I was struck by how seriously even the smallest children took their situation right from the start, and how smart and cooperative they had to be to make their disguises convincing. Those who were lucky enough to be reunited with their parents after the war faced the often difficult task of getting to know them again. The most memorable image from "Hidden" is the full-page portrait of Dounia's mother on her return from a concentration camp. She's utterly changed: shorn and emaciated, her eyes still wide with unspeakable horror. During the war, hope sustained those who had reason to hope. Afterward, as life settled into a constant uphill battle against grief and loss - both emotional and material - there was often no respite in view. The final, tragic note running through these narratives is the reluctance many survivors felt about sharing their wartime experiences. Annette Berman was truly one of the lucky ones - someone who was not so damaged that she couldn't bear to talk about her past. Because these stories must be shared. "Hidden," "Hidden Like Anne Frank" and "The Whispering Town" are worthy additions to the library of remembrance. ELIZABETH WEIN is the author, most recently, of "Rose Under Fire" and "Code Name Verity."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 6, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
Worried that her grandmother has had a nightmare, a young girl offers to listen to the story, hoping to ease her grandmother's mind. And for the first time since her own childhood, the grandmother opens up about her life during WWII, the star she had to wear, the disappearance of her parents, and being sent to the country where she had to lie about her name and her beliefs. Every year, more stories set during the Holocaust are released, many for children, and this one is particularly well done. Dauvillier doesn't sugarcoat the horrors of the Holocaust; instead, he shares them from the perspective of a girl young enough to not quite understand the true scope of the atrocities. Set in occupied France, the story told is honest and direct, and each scene is revealed with care. The frankness of the storytelling is tempered by appealing cartoonlike illustrations that complement the story and add a layer of emotion not found in the narration. A Holocaust experience told as a bedtime story? It sounds crazy, but here it works.--Volin, Eva Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Dauvillier's graphic novel about a Jewish girl's survival in France during the Holocaust balances the cruelty of the persecution she experiences with the miraculous generosity of her neighbors. Lizano's artwork, too, lightens the story's grimmer moments-the outsize heads and pin-dot eyes of the characters are almost reminiscent of the Peanuts gang. Dounia Cohen, now a grandmother, recalls for her granddaughter the growing strictures on the lives of Jews, culminating one terrible night with the arrival of the police; her parents have seconds to hide her before they're taken away. After the Pericards, trusted neighbors, take Dounia in, Mr. Pericard is betrayed. Dounia, consumed up until then with her own grief, realizes that the war causes pain for others: "I think it's from that moment on that I no longer wanted to cry." Dounia's confusion and sorrow as she waits for her parents' return (her mother survives, her father doesn't) are drawn with perception and care. That Dounia chooses to tell her young granddaughter a story she has never revealed to her own son conveys both the persistence of grief and the possibility of healing. Ages 6-up. (Apr.)? (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-Elsa and her grandmother Dounia can't fall asleep one night, and the little girl begs the older woman to share the reason for her sadness. Dounia recounts her experience as a Jewish child in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942. Heartbreaking incidents, such as being ostracized by a teacher and former friends or having to don a yellow a star, are told from a child's perspective, filled with confusion and innocence. Eventually, the little girl is hidden under a panel in her family's wardrobe as police vandalize her home and arrest her parents. Neighbors, the Pericards, rescue Dounia and adopt her while they try to locate her mother and father, who have been transferred to a concentration camp. Dauvillier doesn't shy away from the brutal truth in this portrayal of the Holocaust. Interspersed with Dounia's flashbacks are present-day moments of dialogue between the narrator and Elsa, which are depicted in brown and tan hues. Elsa asks questions and offers comments that young readers might also be grappling with while reading this tale. Lizano's stylized illustrations depict characters with oversize heads, reminiscent of "Peanuts" comics, giving this difficult subject an age-appropriate touch. The subdued palette of blues and greens match the story's tone, and the plethora of images highlighting meals, country scenes, and family time places more emphasis on the people who helped one another during this terrible period than on the heinous acts committed. The final image, one of familial love and peace, will pull heartstrings. Pair this poignant graphic novel with Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (Houghton Mifflin, 1989).-Shelley Diaz, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In this graphic novel for younger readers, Elsa wakes up in the night and discovers her grandmother sitting in the dark, feeling sad. When Elsa asks why, she hears for the first time the story of her grandmother's childhood in Nazi-occupied France. Young Dounia's parents try to explain away the yellow star she must wear by calling it a sheriff's star, but she quickly realizes its true meaning when she begins to be treated very differently at school and in town. When the Nazis come to their apartment, her parents hide Dounia but are themselves taken away, and the terrified little girl is saved by a neighbor. A chain of people help her escape to the country, where she lives as a Catholic girl, with a new name. The graphic novel format helps reinforce the contrast between the dark, scary moments and the happier times in the countryside. The artists use small panels to tell most of the story, with words in the bottom right corners emphasizing Dounia's inner thoughts; large panels occasionally punctuate the big moments. While not disguising the ugliness of the events, the art also helps focus attention on the loving moments between Dounia and her parents, Dounia and the people who help her, and Dounia, Elsa, and her father (who also hears the story for the first time) all hugging one another at the end. susan dove lempke (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
