Torn Thread

Anne Isaacs

ISBN 10: 0613609395 ISBN 13: 9780613609395

Publisher: Bt Bound, 2002

Synopsis

It is June 30, l943 in Bendin, Poland. Twelve-year-old Eva has been hiding in an attic with her Papa as Nazi's ravage what was once her safe, comfortable town. Now the store windows are boarded up and Nazi signs warn against buying goods from Jewish merchants. Three weeks ago, her sister Rachael was snatched from the street by German soldiers and forced to work in a Nazi labor camp in Czechoslovakia. Tonight, to save Eva from certain death in Auschwitz, Papa tells her he is sending her, voluntarily, to the labor camp where her sister is imprisoned. There the girls must live out the war years as prisoners, making clothing and blankets for the Nazis. How the girls find the strength and courage to keep going under these extraordinary circumstances makes for a moving and unforgettable story.

About this title

About the Author

Anne Isaacs was born in Buffalo, New York, where she lived until she left for college. As a child, Anne read constantly, selecting books such as Wind in the Willows and Romeo and Juliet. Her favorite book was Little Women, and she grew up to have a life much like the heroine Jo; maintaining a career as an educator, a mother, and a children's book writer.
In 1967 Anne left Buffalo for the University of Michigan where she received degrees in English Literature and Environmental Education. Today she lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Published in 2006, Pancakes for Supper, is loosely based on the plot of Helen Bannerman's classic story, Little Black Sambo.” But in writing Pancakes for Supper, Anne Isaacs decided to create the first completely American retelling of this beloved story. The characters in Pancakes for Supper, including five animals, are indigenous to New England in the early half of the 19th century. The main character, a spunky new heroine named Toby, has what it takes to stand up to a ferocious wolf, cougar, bear, skunk, and porcupine. The clarified butter, or ghee, of the original tale becomes, in Pancakes for Supper, fresh-tapped maple syrup from the Vermont trees that still supply America with the most famous of pancake toppings.

From Publishers Weekly

HIn a noteworthy departure, Isaacs (Swamp Angel; Treehouse Tales) turns her considerable literary gifts to a painful subjectDher mother-in-law's experiences as a teenage prisoner of a Nazi campDand transforms it into a powerful work of fiction. Like most stories of survival, this one is marked by unlikely turns and conjunctions, which, taken together, preserve the protagonist's life. Eva Buchbinder, 12 years old in 1943, has recently been forced into the Jewish ghetto in Bedzin, Poland, along with her father and sickly older sister, Rachel. After Rachel is seized in a roundup, Eva's father (who has, like other Jews, been forced to work for the Germans without pay) asks the commandant at his worksite to find out exactly where Rachel has been sentDand to have Eva sent there as well. Soon Eva is transported to a slave labor camp in Czechoslovakia, where she indeed finds Rachel. The conditions are terrible: starvation rations, dangerous conditions at the textile factory where they work, rampant disease and, always, the threat of deportation to Auschwitz. Eva struggles internally as well, trying her best to protect the frail Rachel, keeping from Rachel the news that the Bedzin ghetto has been liquidated and weighing the invitation of a fellow-prisoner to join up with partisan fighters. Isaacs takes the measure of acts of casual cruelty or kindness and lets readers see the repercussions. Given its precise detail and sensitivity to unimaginable suffering, this gripping novel reads like the strongest of Holocaust memoirs. Ages 10-up. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bt Bound
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0613609395
• ISBN 13: 9780613609395
• Binding: Library Binding
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 188