Tag Archives: the holocaust
Wolf By Wolf
Wolf By Wolf
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
October 20, 2015
Hardcover
400
Her story begins on a train.
The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, they host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The prize? An audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball in Tokyo.
Yael, a former death camp prisoner, has witnessed too much suffering, and the five wolves tattooed on her arm are a constant reminder of the loved ones she lost. The resistance has given Yael one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year's only female racer, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele's twin brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael's every move.
But as Yael grows closer to the other competitors, can she be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and stay true to her mission?
From the author of The Walled City comes a fast-paced and innovative novel that will leave you breathless.
Review:
I don’t typically gravitate toward alternate history novels, but I decided to give “Wolf By Wolf” a chance because of the exceptional writing and research shown by Ryan Graudin in “The Walled City”. I am glad that I did.
The novel tackles two big “what ifs”: What would happen had Germany and Japan won World War II, and what would happen if some of the Nazi doctors’ more gruesome and occult human experiments had been successful? The research into these topics is obviously thorough and shines through in every historical part written. Add into it a long-distance motorcycle race, and you have a fast-paced plot that makes the book almost impossible to put down.
The book could earn five stars based on the heroine, Yael, alone. She is a survivor in the most literal sense, and the way she is written makes us imagine the horrors she has seen in unsettling detail. While she has a mission, she is true to herself and her morals, unwilling to compromise what is right. She is the type of protagonist that can inspire the reader in the own lives, and for that fact alone I hope “Wolf By Wolf” is widely read.
“Wolf By Wolf” is a novel which I cannot recommend highly enough for those ages 8th grade and up. In addition to being a fantastic and inspiring read, it is also a good starting point for teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust.
This review is based upon a complimentary copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warning:
Language, Sexual Situations, Violence
The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath
History
Yale University Press
2015-04-21
288
Seventy years have passed since the tortured inmates of Hitler’s concentration and extermination camps were liberated. When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months, and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives.
Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivors—their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American, Canadian, and Russian liberators as they contended with survivors’ immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.
Review:
“The Liberation of the Camps” is a book that manages to make itself unique in a history genre that can feel a bit crowded at times.
What sets the book apart is the liberal use of primary sources from a variety of different situations that occurred after liberation. Many of them, including the fact that many Survivors were kept in the camp for a long period after the actual liberation, are unknown to many people. It’s a very comprehensive resource for those with an interest in Holocaust history.
The one major flaw is that it can be dry at times. It’s definitely by an academic and meant for those with a scholarly interest in the Holocaust, but even by those standards it can be dry. I have a degree in history, so feel like I have seen both sides of the “dry history” spectrum. This one is not awful, simply dry in the medium range on the spectrum. Not enough to be boring, but not something to be consumed in large doses.
Overall, the content and primary sources make “The Liberation of the Camps” worth the time for those with an academic interest in the Holocaust. However, for anyone else it would probably be a bit of a bore. Four stars are given for the wealth of information provided, not the writing itself.
This review is based upon a complimentary copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warning:
As this is an adult and non-fiction title, there are no content warnings.
Follow my book reviews and ramblings:
