Good Night, Maman - Hardcover

Mazer, Norma Fox; Huntsman, Wade

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152014683 ISBN 13: 9780152014681

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1999

Synopsis

Karin Levi lives in Paris in the 1940s and when the Germans invade, she and her brother Marc must escape and find a safe place anywhere they can. Jr Lit Guild.

About this title

About the Author

NORMA FOX MAZER is an award-winning novelist and a faculty member in the well-respected Vermont College Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program. Her books have received a Newbery Honor, the Christopher Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery, a National Book Award nomination, and other prestigious honors. She lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

Reviews

This story of a WWII French-Jewish refugee suggests the grimness of the era without becoming too formidable for young readers to ingest. Indicating, but not dwelling upon her heroine's suffering, Mazer (When She Was Good) traces the 12-year-old's arduous journey to freedom. The Nazis have sent Karin's father to Poland, and the rest of the family lives in hiding in a French woman's attic. Soon, however, the arrangement becomes too dangerous and Karin, her older brother and their mother are forced to flee south. Maman falls ill and is unable to complete the journey; the children regretfully continue on their own, eventually gaining passage on a ship to America. The second half of the novel takes place in the same refugee camp in Oswego, N.Y., that served as the setting for Miriam Bat-Ami's Two Suns in the Sky (Children's Forecasts, May 17). While Bat-Ami's portrayal of the refugee camp has more depth, Mazer's writing is more fluid. Karin and her brother, Marc, struggle to overcome homesickness and begin a new life. Karin gradually lets go of the past, finally realizing that she will never see her beloved Maman again. The issues are somewhat neatened for the sake of young readers; this story may serve as an introduction to the Holocaust and its effect on survivors, but doesn't have the impact of other titles in this genre. Ages 10-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Aimed at readers who have already encountered Anne Frank, this riveting historical novel from Mazer (Missing Pieces, 1995, etc.) is based on a little-known chapter of WWII history. Karin Levi's story begins in a tiny attic room in Paris in the 1940s, where she is hidden away with her brother, Marc, and their mother, practicing the art of quiet. German soldiers are conducting house-to-house searches, rounding up Jews, and the small family is soon on the run, depending on strangers for scraps of food and shelter. When Maman falls ill, Karin and Marc head for Naples without her; the children board the Henry Gibbons, a ship full of European refugees bound for Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York. Upon their arrival in America, their story turns from one of flight and danger to the happiness and sorrow associated with adjusting to a new language, customs, and schooling, and making new friends. Although it is a shock to Karin, it comes as no surprise to readers when Marc reveals that Maman is dead. Mazer skillfully paints Karin as brave and independent, yet depicts her devotion to Maman throughout, writing unsent letters and never losing sight of her belief that one day they will be reunited. Rather than relying on events and facts of the war and its atrocities to create sympathy, the author paints her central character's thoughts and feelings, her moments of weakness and her strength, so that the story is stirringly understated. (Fiction. 10-12) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Grade 4-7-A touching novel that begins in 1940 and ends in 1945. Mazer follows 12-year-old Karin Levi and her experiences first as a hidden Jewish child in France, next as a traveling refugee, and, finally, as an inmate in the displaced persons camp in Oswego, NY. After Karin, her mother, and older brother leave France, they stay with a kind man in Italy. When it becomes clear that they must flee, the girl's mother is too ill to continue, and the two siblings must leave her behind. Throughout the book, the child deals with her feelings of loss by writing her mother letters. Mazer captures the refugee experience as Karin travels from place to place in constant fear with no sense of belonging, until she finally settles in at Oswego. Although the prose occasionally becomes strained and even saccharine, such as when the girl refers to her family as her "beloveds," for the most part, Karin's voice is realistic. Despite everything she has been through, she has her moments of petty jealousy and preteen difficulties. However, when her brother finally tells her that their mother did not survive, she manages to overcome her grief and look to the future when they will live with their father's aunt in California. Libraries looking to expand the scope of their Holocaust literature will find this book a welcome addition.
Amy Lilien-Harper, Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Miriam Bat-Ami's Two Suns in the Sky tells the story of the World War II Emergency Refugee Camp in Oswego, New York, from the alternating viewpoints of a local teenager and a young Holocaust survivor in the camp. Mazer's focus is on the Jewish refugee story, starting in Europe, where for two years Karin Levi and her older brother, Marc, are in hiding and on the run from their Paris home. Karin's father has been rounded up for Auschwitz. Her mother ("Maman") is ill, and, in a tearing parting, the children have to leave their mother behind if they are to get away. Karin tells of their escape by chance and luck, until, in 1944, they board the one refugee ship for the U.S. In Oswego they gradually settle in, go to school, make friends, learn to talk like "swell" Americans. Mazer writes with a simplicity that personalizes the history for middle-school readers, yet her research is never intrusive. Twelve-year-old Karin's first-person narrative is both direct and restrained about the survivor trauma, honest about the mixture of love, guilt, and jealousy between sister and brother. Always Karin is haunted by Maman; Karin writes letters to Maman and tries not to know that Maman is dead. No one in the camp wants to talk of the horror they left ("We all talked only about now. No sorrows. No sad stories"), and there are some very funny scenes in which Karin's American friend teaches her the New York way, even as Karin's grief for her mother nearly overwhelms her. Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0152014683
• ISBN 13: 9780152014681
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 185