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Title details for Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy - Available

Yellow Star

by Jennifer Roy
Christina Moore
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
In 1939 the Nazis invade Lodz, Poland, forcing four-year-old Syvia Perlmutter and 270,000 other Jews into a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed men. Scared and confused, Syvia and the others have no idea how terrible their lives will soon be. When the Nazis start removing children "to keep them safe," Syvia's father does not believe them. He does everything he can to protect Syvia, even hiding her in a graveyard. For years the family barely survives, until Russian soldiers liberate the ghetto in 1945 and free the remaining 800 survivors. Among the 800 are Syvia and only 11 other children. A Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards honor book, Yellow Star is a novelization in free verse of the true experiences of the author's aunt. It received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, VOYA, and School Library Journal, which proclaimed it a "standout in the genre of Holocaust literature." ". what sets it apart is the lyricism of the narrative, and Syvia's credible childlike voice, maturing with each chapter, as she gains further understanding of the events around her."-Publishers Weekly, starred review

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 17, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781449899400
      • File size: 94008 KB
      • Duration: 03:15:50

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 710
    • Text Difficulty: 3

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This powerful work relates the story of Syvia Perlmutter, one of only 12 Jewish children to survive the Lodz ghetto in Poland during WWII. The author, Syvia's niece, wrote the story in a poetic first-person narrative that begins in the late thirties and concludes when the ghetto is liberated. Christina Moore's performance captures the terror, bewilderment, and deprivation experienced by Syvia and thousands of others. For history like this, audio is even more compelling than print in its ability to engage listeners. One hears the marching Nazi boots, the bombing airplanes, and the screams of parents whose children are being ripped from their arms. Moore uses a subdued tone, completely appropriate for the telling of this story. Her performance brings an immediacy and intensity to the atrocities that we read about in history books. M.H.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 20, 2006
      In February 1940, four-and-half-year-old Syvia (later Sylvia) Perlmutter, her mother, father and 12-year-old sister, Dora, were among the first of more than 250,000 Jews to be forced into Poland's Lodz Ghetto. When the Russians liberated the ghetto on January 19, 1945, the Perlmutters were among only 800 people left alive; Syvia, "one day shy of ten years old," was one of just 12 children to survive the ordeal. The novel is filled with searing incidents of cruelty and deprivation, love, luck and resilience. But what sets it apart is the lyricism of the narrative, and Syvia's credible childlike voice, maturing with each chapter, as she gains further understanding of the events around her. Roy, who is Syvia's niece, tells her aunt's story in first-person free verse. "February 1940" begins: "I am walking/ into the ghetto./ My sister holds my hand/ so that I don't/ get lost/ or trampled/ by the crowd of people/ wearing yellow stars,/ carrying possessions,/ moving into the ghetto." The rhythms, repetitions and the space around each verse enable readers to take in the experience of an ordinary child caught up in incomprehensible events: "I could be taken away/ on a train,/ .../ and delivered to Germans/ who say that nothing belongs to Jewish people any-/ more./ Not even their own children." Nearly every detail—a pear Syvia bravely plucks from a tree in the ghetto, a rag doll she makes when her family must sell her own beloved doll—underscores the wedded paradox of hope and fear, joy and pain. Ages 10-up.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:710
  • Text Difficulty:3

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