For the month of September, we will continue to explore the topic of Refugees in children’s books. Today I would like to share a book I recently came across on the topic: Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Cuban-American poet Magarita Engle (Henry Holt & Co, 2009). This is the author’s third novel in verse about Cuba (the previous two were the award-winning The Poet Slave of Cuba and The Surrender Tree), and this time her story takes place during WWII, when when the rise of Nazism led to a severe rise in refugees from Germany trying to find safety in other parts of the world.

A historical note at the end (and readers may want to consider reading it before getting started), helps contextualize the story, which is told, mostly, in the alternating voices of Daniel, a 13 year-old German Jewish who escapes Germany in 1939 after being separated from his parents, and whose ship is finally allowed entry in Cuba after being turned away from the U.S. and Canada; and Paloma, a 12 year-old girl who, unbeknownst to her father, is (more…)

Michael Morpurgo is one of the greats in contemporary British children’s literature – he is a master craftsman of storytelling who weaves fiction into such convincing historical contexts that you have to pinch yourself to remember the characters came out of his imagination

Two of his recent stories for older children have a wartime setting: but both stories also have roots in the present and a new generation, which bring a perspective of hope and renewal to counterbalance the feelings of despair engendered by these examples of the futility and madness of war. The Best Christmas Present in the World (Egmont, 2004) centres around a letter from Jim Macpherson, an English officer in the First World War, which relates the extraordinary events of the momentary truce and famous football game between the British and the Germans on Christmas Day, 1914. Many years later, at Christmas time, the letter is found in an old, second-hand desk by the narrator. It is marked as “Jim’s last letter, received 25th January 1915. To be buried with me when the time comes.” And so our narrator sets out to find “Dearest Connie” – and gives her the best Christmas present in the world…

Meanwhile, The Mozart Question (Walker Books, 2008) is the story of a world-famous violinist, Paolo Levi, whose parents’ lives were saved in the Second World War through playing the violin in an orchestra at a Nazi concentration camp. Lesley, the story’s narrator, is a young journalist who is sent to Venice to interview Paolo. She pointedly does not ask him the forbidden Mozart question – but the time is right for him to talk about it. He tells her (more…)

Bruno, in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, is one of the more problematic fictional characters whom I’ve found within the pages of a book. While Corinne said in her comments that she thinks his character is realistic, since he is a nine-year-old boy who has led a sheltered life, has an overbearing older sister, and lives in a time when there was no television or internet, I found his inability to understand his own language, as shown by his persistent usage of The Fury for the Fuhrer and Outwith for Auschwitz, to be unconvincing, contrived, and essentially unnecessary. However, it’s certainly true that without television and other mass media we could all be as uninformed and as naive as Bruno and that sometimes a character is more an instrument to advance a story’s plot than a breathing, convincing entity.

And Bruno certainly does advance the plot of this story. It’s a page-turner. As Corinne says, ” Once I started it, there was no way I could put it down until I had finished it.” I gulped it down as well and was relieved to know that this is the way the author intends for the book to be read.

Bruno’s simplified way of looking at the world around him makes this a good introduction to the Holocaust for children who know little about this time in history, and could work well in a classroom setting where there would be immediate answers to the questions that arise.

As an adult, I was annoyed by “red herring” portions of the book that were brought up and then never fully explored. Lieutenant Kotler is grilled by Bruno’s father over dinner one evening about the reason for Kotler’s father leaving Germany in 1938. Is Kotler’s father a Jew? A dissident? Who knows? It is never explained and left me wondering why the scene took place. It doesn’t seem to play a part in Kotler’s subsequent disappearance, which Corinne attributes to Kotler’s closeness to Bruno’s mother.

The shocking ending of this book comes so closely after Bruno’s betrayal of Shmuel and Shmuel’s subsequent punishment for stealing food that it could be wondered if Shmuel had intended for Bruno to stay behind the fence forever. Although Bruno is sheltered and naive, Shmuel understands the differences between the two boys, especially after living in the camp for a year. Corinne, on the other hand, says “Yes – I think Shmuel intended for Bruno to return home. I don’t think either boy had any idea what would happen or the risks they were taking when Bruno crawled under the fence.”

This is a book that bears discussion and I hope that it will be chosen for book groups, classrooms, and family read-alouds for years to come.