Children of Bach

After the disappearance of their parents, renowned Jewish musicians, Pali, Peter, and Suzy join their aunt, a young friend, and an elderly neighbor in a desperate flight from Nazi-occupied Hungary. By the author of The Seekers.

Grade 6-9-- The adolescent children of a Jewish family in Hungary return home from school one day to find that their parents and aunt have been taken away by German soldiers. The aunt escapes and comes back to the apartment, but only after the youngsters have spent several days fending for themselves, shopping for food, and trying to carry on without attracting attention to themselves. A friendly neighbor arranges to send the group to a remote Italian valley. Dillon shows thorough research and neatly integrates background into the story. The plot develops slowly at first, but picks up once Aunt Eva returns, and suspense builds as they make their journey hidden in a moving van. However, the teenage characters may be somewhat difficult for many readers to relate to; they are obsessed with classical music and practicing their instruments, and show little rebellion or identity crisis. The horrors of the Holocaust are not really mentioned, and the group meet more friends than foes along the way as they must choose whom they will trust. No real sense of peril or imminent danger truly emerges, but the relationships between the characters are interesting. --Joyce Adams Burner, formerly at Spring Hill Middle School, KS
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Dillon, a prolific Irish author, uses the backdrop of WW II Budapest to stage a riveting drama about Jewish children who escape the Nazis. Peter, only 14, finds himself in charge of his younger brother and sister and the sister's friend when they come home from school and discover that their parents, famous musicians, have been arrested by the Nazis along with other Jews in the community. Aware of the perils that loom over them, the children at first seek refuge in music as they puzzle out their options. But when their Aunt Eva miraculously returns (she's outwitted her would-be captors), they enlist the help of a neighbor and hatch a daring plan. Courage coexists with human vulnerability, while the ironies of the title are exploited subtly and to excellent effect. Dillon may fail to suggest the extent of Jewish suffering at the hands of Germans and indifferent Hungarians--the enemy here is rather too easily deceived, the neighbors all willing to risk their own lives, the children all but unaffected by the disappearance and probable death of their parents--but she sustains the suspense so well and engenders such concern for her characters that their plight assumes paramount importance for the reader as well. Ages 10-13.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.