Review by Booklist Review
Eleven-year-old Jeska (Jesje to her family) lives in the Netherlands with her mother, father, and older sister. Theirs is a largely cheerless household: her mother keeps the drapes closed, seems afraid to answer the door, and has rules upon rules for Jeska to obey. Among them are don't be conspicuous, don't talk too loudly, don't make mistakes, and always be careful everywhere you go--even if the danger is past. But why? A clue appears when Jeska and her mother visit her maternal grandmother in a nearby nursing home, and the woman calls Jeska by the wrong name: Hesje. But who is Hesje? Jeska decides to become a journalist like her father and find out the answers to who, what, when, where, why, and how? As she investigates, answers slowly begin to appear, until Jeska finally learns the truth. Based on real life, with ties to WWII and the Holocaust, the book is told in Jeska's simple, straightforward voice, which captures the melancholy mood of this quietly memorable story.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Straddling memoir and fiction, illustrator Verstegen (A New Home for Beaver) tells the story of 11-year-old Jesje uncovering the trauma of her family's WWII tragedies. Jesje, her older sister, and their parents live in the shadow of her mother's unexplained fears and sensitivities--to noise, to strangers, to war talk--keeping shades drawn, voices lowered, and the doorbell often unplugged. When Jesje's Flemish grandmother, Bomma, mistakenly calls her "Hesje" and nobody will explain the name's origin, Jesje turns investigative journalist to learn who the mysterious figure was and why her parents insist on keeping the war's history from her. Following clues in Bomma's photo album, as well as eavesdropping, secretly visiting Bomma, and questioning a visiting uncle, Jesje comes to understand the roots of her mother's behaviors and her own identity. Set in the Netherlands, apparently in the early 1980s, the slim novel is imbued with hidden grief and pain, but also with the quiet joys that Jesje's sensitive nature brings her, as she befriends a neighborhood cat, tries to save a favorite tree, and creates an imaginary island with a friend. The book's gentle pace may discourage some, but Jesje's steady pursuit of the truth and embracing of her legacy make for a satisfying read. Ages 8--12. (Nov.)
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Review by Horn Book Review
Jeska lives in the Netherlands in the 1980s. Her parents are secretive about the family's past and the reason for her mother's periods of self-isolation. When her grandmother becomes ill and confused, her mentions of an unfamiliar relative and then of Westerbork lead Jeska to make connections with what she's learned in school about World War II. She comes to realize that her family is Jewish and that her mother and grandmother are Holocaust survivors. The smoothly translated first-person prose has a hushed feel to it, with the details in Jeska's observations lending immediacy ("Classical music and warm air compete for space; this car is far too small for piano music, the stifling heat, Mama, and me"). The close adherence to the point of view of an eleven-year-old who's been kept in the dark makes watching her work things out for herself all the more poignant: "Is it a Jewish face that looks back at me? It doesn't feel Jewish. But how does that actually feel? I have no idea." Ultimately, she concludes that what her mother has hidden is worth remembering. An afterword explains that Verstegen "adapted the facts" of true events from her childhood "to be able to tell a well-rounded story." An emotional glimpse into the effects of the Holocaust, long after its end. Shoshana Flax November/December 2021 p.120(c) Copyright 2021. 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.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Discovering your family's mysterious past can be eye-opening. Not to mention disorienting. Eleven-year-old Jeska, known as Jesje, lives in the Netherlands and is familiar with her mother's unexplained anger, dark moods, emotionally triggered responses, frequent playing of Mozart, and admonitions to be invisible and that "no one can be trusted." She notices that their household is somber in atmosphere compared with that of her best friend, Lienke, and seeks solace with a cat she names Moz (short for Mozart). When her mother's mother, Bomma, becomes confused in the nursing home she lives in since leaving Antwerp, Jesje investigates and learns painful details of the past. Bomma mistakes Jesje for her niece, Hesje, a beloved companion of Jesje's mother, who was "transported" at a tender age to a concentration camp. Debut author Vestergen tells this true story of her family's previously unrevealed identity and history. She is a descendant of Emanuel Querido, a Dutch publisher of an earlier generation (and inspiration for this book's U.S. publisher). Setting this book apart from other Holocaust survivor stories are the language and imagery, a family story that focuses on very young children, the Dutch setting, and the attempts of a sensitive young person to understand mystifying adult behavior and PTSD--in its specificity, it finds the universal. Multigenerational trauma artfully revealed from a child's point of view. (afterword, photograph) (Historical fiction. 8-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
