no pretty pictures :: essays research papers

"nominative for a 1998 National Book Award for Young Peoples Literature, No elegant Pictures A Child of War is Anita Lobels gripping memoir of surviving the Holocaust. A Caldecott-winning illustrator of such delightful picture books as On Market Street, it is thorny to believe Lobel endured the horrific childhood she did. From age 5 to age 10, Lobel worn-out(a) what are supposed to be carefree years hiding from the Nazis, defend her younger brother, being captured and marched from camp to camp, and surviving completely dehumanizing conditions. A grand report by any measure, Lobels memoir is all the more persistent as told from the first-person, childs-eye view. Her girlhood voice tells it like it is, without irony or heretofore complete understanding, but with matter-of-fact honesty and astonishing charge to detail. She carves vivid, perpetual images into readers minds. On hiding in the attic of the ghetto "We were always told to be real quiet. The whispers of the trapped grown-ups sounded like the noise of insects rubbing their legs together." On being spy while hiding in a convent "They lined us up facing the wall. I looked at the dark red bricks in antecedent of me and waited for the shots. When the shouting continued and the shots didnt come, I noticed my breath hanging in thin puffs in the air." On trying not to draw the attention of the Nazis "I wanted to shrink away. To fold into a small concealed thing that had no detectable smell. No breath. No flesh. No sound."It is a miracle that Lobel and her brother survived on their own in this world that any braggart(a) would find unbearable. Indeed, and appropriately, there are no pretty pictures here, and adults choosing to share this story with younger readers should make themselves readily available for explanations and comforting words. (The camps are right of excrement and death, all faithfully recorded in direct, unsparing language.) besides this is a story that must be told, from the shocking beginning when a young girl watches the Nazis march into Krakow, to the final words of Lobels epilogue "My life-time has been good. I want more." (Ages 10 to 16) --Brangien Davis From Booklist Gr. 6-12. The truth of the childs viewpoint is the potence of this Holocaust survivor story, told with physical immediacy and no "pride of victimhood." Lobels ebullient, gorgeously colored illustrated books--from the Caldecott Honor Book On Market Street (1982) to Toads and Diamonds (1996)--give no hint of her dark, terrifying childhood.