Escape to the Forest: Based on a True Story of the Holocaust - Hardcover

Radin, Ruth Y.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060285206 ISBN 13: 9780060285203

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2000

Synopsis

When the Nazis invade Poland, nothing is safe anymore.

Ten-year-old Sarah and her family must leave their home and live in a Jewish ghetto surrounded by barbed wire. There, life is a nightmare of cold and hunger where Nazi soldiers kill Jews at will. But Sarah still hears stories that give her hope--stories about a man who lives in the nearby forest, fighting the Nazis and sheltering the Jews.

Sarah's brother thinks they should try to escape to the forest. Her parents think they will be safer where they are. Sarah doesn't know who is right. But as life in the ghetto grows worse and worse, the forest may be their only hope.

Based on a true story of life during the Holocaust, this is a heartrending novel of one family's struggle to survive.

About this title

About the Authors

Ruth Yaffe Radin is the author of nine other books for children. They include A Winter Place, a Reading Rainbow book and an ALA Notable Picture Book; and the novel All Joseph Wanted, which was selected for the Bank Street College of Education's Recommended List. The author lives in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. When she isn't writing books, she is composing music.

Janet Hamlin has illustrated The Zoo Garden by Chris Hastings. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Ten-year-old Sarah and her family must leave their home and live in a Jewish ghetto surrounded by barbed wire. There, life is a nightmare of cold and hunger where Nazi soldiers kill Jews at will. But Sarah still hears stories that give her hope--stories about a man who lives in the nearby forest, fighting the Nazis and sheltering the Jews.

Sarah's brother thinks they should try to escape to the forest. Her parents think they will be safer where they are. Sarah doesn't know who is right. But as life in the ghetto grows worse and worse, the forest may be their only hope.

Based on a true story of life during the Holocaust, this is a heartrending novel of one family's struggle to survive.

Reviews

Grade 4-6-This book follows Sarah's life from 1939-1943 as she goes from living in fear of the Russians to being forced into a ghetto by the Nazis to escaping the roundup of the Jews. Ultimately, she ends up in a town-sized hideout in the woods built by brothers who rescued Jews and fought guerrilla warfare against the Nazis. The story is compelling, and Sarah's experiences are clearly depicted. However, the narrative jumps around, sometimes completely without transition, and occasionally delivers horrific statements rather harshly. The story is told in first person and, at times, Radin's adult voice drowns out Sarah's childlike one. Despite these caveats, the author tells the powerful story of Jews not only fighting back, but also helping one another escape, and surviving by their own wits in the woods. The occasional illustrations are more symbol than picture: a broken window, a menorah, a stitched Star of David.
Amy Lilien-Harper, Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A fascinating, little-known chapter of Jewish resistance and survival during the Holocaust is the basis for this novel, but Radin's (All Joseph Wanted) disappointing fictional treatment leaves the most interesting part of the real-life story largely off the page. In 1943, a Polish Jew named Tuvia Bielski established a partisan camp, or otriad, in the forests outside Lida, Poland. The camp eventually encompassed more than 1,200 Jews, who were evacuated by the Russians in 1944. Radin's heroine, who is eight years old when the novel opens in 1939, reaches the otriad just as the book closes, and the information about the otriad is relegated to an endnote. The focus instead is on material covered better elsewhereAthe persecution of Polish Jews by first the Russians and then the Germans. Without prior knowledge of the complicated historical background, it may be difficult for young readers to understand the action. The characterizations and scene-setting approach the formulaic, while dialogue referring to the activities of Bielski and his brothers seems tipped in. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 9-up. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

PLB 0-06-028521-4 From Radin (All Joseph Wanted, 1991), a short, accessible novel that could serve as a introduction to the realities of the Holocaust. Sarah, a young Jewish girl, lives in eastern Poland, where the Russians have taken control of her town and imposed harsh restrictions. The family must celebrate Hanukkah in secret; Lili, a girl from western Poland whom the family shelters, is arrested. Eventually Lili is released, but when the Germans attack they force the family into a small ghetto. Jews are being murdered in the streets, and Sarah's brother, David, knows that a family, the Bielskis, have escaped into the forest. Sarah's mother, believing that life in the forest would be worse, refuses to leave the ghetto even after the family survives a selection by the Germans. When ordered onto a train that will take them to Treblinka, her father tells Sarah to leave; she must find the Bielskis in the forest in order to survive. The fact that this is a true story lends the narrative further immediacy and suspense. Compelling reading for the young. (b&w illustrations) (Fiction. 8-10) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060285206
• ISBN 13: 9780060285203
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Hamlin Janet
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96