Prisoner in Time: a Child of the Holocaust - Hardcover

Pamela Melnikoff, Dust Jacket Illustrated By Michael Charlton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0216932599 ISBN 13: 9780216932593

Publisher: Blackie Children's Books, 1992

Synopsis

First edition, first printing hardcover with unclipped dust jacket illustrated by Michael Charlton, in very good condition. Light shelf wear to the jacket and page block, pages are clear throughout. LW

About this title

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-This blend of history, fantasy, and legend adds little to the growing body of Holocaust literature. The convoluted plot involves Jan, a Jewish boy from 1940s Prague who grew up on stories of Rabbi Loewe's Golem. After taking a forbidden walk from the house where he is hiding, he discovers an amulet that takes him back to Rabbi Loewe's time. Throughout the rest of the story he goes back and forth in time, ultimately ending up in the Terezin concentration camp, where, just when he plans to escape to the past to prevent his deportation to Auschwitz, the amulet is stolen. The mix of reality and time travel is not totally successful. Jan's life in Terezin lacks the horror of some other camps, which, combined with his magical ability to leave, makes his deportation especially bleak and unexpected. The historical information seems fairly accurate, and the inclusion of the famous poem "The Butterfly," written by an actual resident of Terezin, adds power and pathos to the book. However, Melnikoff's stilted prose and awkward plot ultimately prevent the book from rising to the top of a crowded genre. Religious libraries needing fiction about the Terezin camp may want to consider it, but others can pass.

Amy Lilien-Harper, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 6-10. While Jan, 12, is hiding from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia in 1942, he finds an amulet that takes him back to sixteenth-century Prague, where he helps the famous Rabbi Loewe create the legendary monster Golem to scare the racists who accuse the Jews of murdering Christian children. When Jan returns to his own time, he's transported to Terezin concentration camp. The historical parallels are important (anti-Semitism didn't begin with the Nazis, and many readers will want to pursue the Golem legend), but most of this honest docunovel is about what it was like to be a teenager in Terezin. Through Jan's eyes, Melnikoff presents the daily horror and brutality, and she includes some famous people (among them, Friedl Dicker-Brandejsova, who ran secret art classes for children) and true events, like the Nazis' prettying up of Terezin for Red Cross inspection. Unlike Jane Yolen's Devil's Arithmetic (1988), there's no slick upbeat ending to the time travel. Like nearly every one of the 15,000 children at Terezin, Jan is sent to a death camp. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackie Children's Books
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0216932599
• ISBN 13: 9780216932593
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144