Good Night, Maman - Softcover

Mazer, Norma Fox

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0152061738 ISBN 13: 9780152061739

Publisher: Clarion Books, 2010

Synopsis

Karin Levi’s world of family, school, and friends is torn apart when the German army occupies Paris in June of 1940. Karin and her brother, Marc, like Jews all over Europe, find themselves on the run, seeking safety wherever they can find it. When Marc obtains two coveted places aboard a ship bound for the United States, Karin knows that crossing the ocean means she may never see her beloved parents again. Yet she and Marc have little choice if they are to survive. Karin’s unforgettable story--revealing the little-known world of a handful of European refugees in World War II America--tells of survival, of growing up, and of love’s ability to endure even the most extraordinary circumstances.

About this title

Review:

Young readers who have loved and mourned Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl may take solace in the more hopeful ending of Good Night, Maman, Norma Fox Mazer's tender story of a brother and sister's escape from the Holocaust. Like all Jews in France during World War II, Karin and her older brother Marc are on the run from the Nazis. At first the siblings and their strong and gentle mother hide for more than a year in a tiny storage closet in a neighbor's house. But when the Jew Searches are intensified, they must leave, traveling on foot and only at night. At last Karin and Marc are lucky enough to find places on a ship bound for the United States, but Maman is too ill for the journey and must stay behind. At the refugee camp in Oswego, New York, Karin takes comfort in writing unmailed letter after letter to her mother, as she and Marc struggle to adjust to a new country, a new language, and each other's changing needs. Marc finally reveals that Maman is dead, a sad fact he has kept to himself to shelter his sister--to allow her to increase her own strength with the support of her mother's remembered presence.

Mazer based her novel on historical fact--the camp at Fort Ontario in Oswego was the only official shelter offered to European Jews by the United States. For a contrasting treatment of this same setting, teens will want to read Two Suns in the Sky, by Miriam Bat-Ami. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell

From 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0152061738
• ISBN 13: 9780152061739
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192