It's Time for a Much Needed Vacation!!

My home Internet connection is finally working again, and I've spent the evening preparing blog posts for the rest of the week. That's right, I'm finally getting a vacation!!

It's time for our annual 4th of July camping trip, and we're headed to Pennsylvania on Wednesday morning. I won't be back online until Monday, but in the meantime, prepare yourselves for a couple of reviews by The Girl. This year, Serena and her husband, along with my sister-in-law, her husband, and my 9-year-old nephew, are joining us. We're going to have a blast.

Sorry I haven't been blog hopping much these days. The lack of Internet at home didn't help, but at least I'm connected again. I don't go back to work until next Wednesday, so hopefully I'll have time on Monday and Tuesday to do some catching up.

Well, I'm off to pack clothes and other camping necessities. See you all soon!!

Mailbox Monday -- June 29

It's time for another Mailbox Monday and another big thanks to Marcia from The Printed Page for hosting. Visit Marcia's site to find out what we bookish peeps added to our shelves over the last week.

Only 2 for me this time, as I'm accepting fewer books these days.



Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant (an unexpected package from Random House)



Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham (aka Bill Surie) -- This one came from the author. I've been dying to read it, so I couldn't turn it down. I just peeked into it on Friday night...and now I'm more than halfway through this 665 page book. It's addicting!

What books did you welcome into your home recently?

Too Tall Alice Giveaway for 4th Graders

Back in February, The Girl and I wrote a joint review of Too Tall Alice by Barbara Worton and Dom Rodi (illustrator). It's a great book to help kids accept themselves as they are.

I recently was informed by Barbara Worton about the "Standing Tall With Too Tall Alice" contest, in which 75 4th graders will win a signed copy of Too Tall Alice, a bookmark, and an "I'm just right for me" wristband.

All they have to do is write down 3 coolest things about being them and send their entries to the address in the official rules by August 31, 2009.

I think this is a nice way to help kids feeling good about themselves, and they can get some goodies in the process.

I'm Officially a Freelancer!

Thanks to a recommendation from my good friend Serena, I now have a freelancing gig. Check out my page, where I'll be reviewing books (no surprise there!), interviewing authors, and detailing local bookish events.

I just posted my first article about Holocaust books here. The more people who visit my page/articles, the more successful this venture will be. So spread the word, subscribe to my articles by email, and of course, feel free to leave a comment on my posts over there. I'd love to hear what you all think.

I've long been looking for new outlets for my writing, so I'm very excited. Preparing articles (plus a down Internet connection at home) is why I've been so scarce lately, but once I get my Internet back up on Monday and create a new routine, hopefully it'll be less hectic. At least the craziness involves things I love.

If any of you are interested in writing articles on Examiner.com, let me know in the comments or send me an email and I'll send you a referral form.

The Seventh Well by Fred Wander

The Seventh Well by Fred Wander is unlike any Holocaust story I've read. Wander is a survivor of about 20 concentration camps between 1938 and 1945, yet the inspiration for this novel was the death of his 10-year-old daughter years after the war. Wander's life story is fascinating, and the afterword by translator Michael Hofmann helps put things into perspective.

In The Seventh Well, an unnamed narrator talks about his experiences in several concentration camps during World War II not by focusing on his suffering, but by detailing the sufferings and previous lives of the other men in the camps. What is unique about The Seventh Well in comparison to other books I've read about the Holocaust is that Wander details the interactions between the prisoners. The Germans, called "jackboots" in the book, are always there inflicting harm, but most of the narrative is about the conversations the men have while working, how they prop up the sick and the fallen to avoid "the bullet," how they ponder their lives and the likelihood of death in the near future.

He fills his nostrils with the smell of the woods, and he looks about him, looks for the vanished traces of beauty in his life. Suddenly he is looking for a friend with whom he can share these things, and when he has found him, he intoxicates himself with his past, spread out like an oil painting before his eyes. Something in him is driven to yell out: I am human! I have known respect! he wants to cry out. I was loved, I had a home, a wife and children, friends. I have performed kindnesses and not asked for reward. I have seen marvellous things, I know the smell of old cities. I could have done anything, achieved everything, and if I didn't do or achieve, then it was only because I didn't know, I couldn't sense... (page 15)

A Jew next to me by the axle, a man I didn't know, large, bony, and stooped, his face extinguished, kept murmuring with every breath, "How much longer? How much longer? How much longer?" He kept his eyes shut, his hands, which were ripped and bloody from the axle, kept pulling the wagon, we all were pulling the wagon, the wagon was our life, the wagon was a game, whoever succeeded in getting it across the mountains had won. (page 40)

Something had sharpened my vision, allowed me to see faces otherwise than before. Disfigured faces, faces swollen with wounds, with scurf, with purulent sores, but faces that had still somehow retained some of their individual character: pride and self-respect, comfort, and a last shimmer of better days in the past. (page 82)

The chapters are not chronological, and they read like stand-alone essays. A mere three pages, the chapter titled "Bread" captured my attention. Wander, in the voice of his nameless narrator, describes the many different ways in which the prisoners eat their meager rations of bread. Some eat it frantically right when it touches their hands so that no one can steal it, while others go about dividing the loaves into unequal pieces and drawing lots. The narrator points out that some save the bread and carry it with them, but these men have little chance of survival.

Then I still have to mention the masochists, the members of a secret bread cult. They torment themselves with an illusion. They put their ration into a bag they carry with them at all times. The bread, existing outside of their bodies instead of inside, might sustain their imaginations, but it robs them of their strength. They die faster than the others. In the course of working, who knows when, usually unseen by the others, they pull out tiny scraps -- their elixir -- from their bags, and eat them. Idiots. (page 30)

The narrator provides little glimpses of his own journey from camp to camp, but the focus is always on the others. Their stories are heartbreaking, but Wander infuses the narrative with glimmers of hope. The narrator learns something from each of the men, and he carries it with him.

It's impossible for me to do this book justice. Wander's storytelling, though it jumps around, draws you in. The narrative is harsh and painful, but that's to be expected. I was blown away by The Seventh Well, by the images Wander presents; the sociological aspects of the story (the hierarchy of the inmates as Jews, political prisoners, etc.); and the fact that the prisoners recited poetry, sang opera, discussed philosophy and literature, and tried to keep their minds alive when the rest of their bodies were dying.

The Seventh Well is the kind of book you think about for hours after turning the last page. Given that the stories are based on Wander's own experiences, it left me with a different view of the concentration camps. It drives home the point that each and every person who entered the camps had a name, a face, an occupation, dreams, and passions. It was a hard book to read, but very enlightening. For more about Fred Wander, click here.

******

The Seventh Well is the 13th book I've read for the WWII reading challenge at War Through the Generations.

Disclosure:  I purchased my copy of The Seventh Well. 

I Caved: The Everything Austen Challenge

So you might have heard that Stephanie of Stephanie's Written Word is hosting the Everything Austen Challenge. All you have to do to participate is commit to six Austen-themed things (such as Austen novels, Austen sequels, movies about Austen books, movies/books about Austen's life, and yes, those zombie/vampire Austen books) from July 1, 2009, to January 1, 2010. Oh, and there will be prizes!

Serena and I plan to watch a couple of movies together (Colin Firth, here I come!), and I'll throw some bookish stuff in there, too. I'm not committing to any particular book or movie right now; I'll probably play this challenge by ear.

Mailbox Monday -- June 22

As always, a big thanks to Marcia from The Printed Page for hosting Mailbox Monday, where bookish folk talk about the books they received in the mail, purchased, or otherwise obtained during the past week.

I'm a bit late getting my post up today, but I'm exhausted from the weekend. We did our spring cleaning on Saturday -- one day before the official start of summer. Hey, at least we made the "deadline." :) I concentrated on the bedroom, organizing my desk, storing my yarn, and making space for all my books. Still haven't purchased a replacement bookshelf; we're hoping to replace a few pieces of furniture in the coming months and I want them to match. For Father's Day, Serena, The Girl, and I watched the men play softball, and they won their first game (just in time for the season to come to an end). Hooray!

Anyway, here are the books I received last week:


Millie's Fling by Jill Mansell (from Danielle Jackson at Sourcebooks)



Broken Birds: The Story of My Momila by Jeannette Katzir (from the author)



Hunter by Campbell Jeffries (from the author)

I couldn't find a link to this book anywhere online, but it has to do with Nazi war criminals living in Australia and a young boy who befriends them. It sounded like an interesting read for the WWII reading challenge.



Priceless Memories by Bob Barker (with Digby Diehl) (contest win from Books & Needlepoint)

My hubby can't wait to listen to this one on the way to the campground next week!

Finally, here are the Asian Heritage Month books I won at S. Krishna's Books:



The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee



Strangers From a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans by Ronald Takaki



Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée



Transparency: Stories by Frances Hwang



Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee


What books did you welcome into your home recently?

Let the Shadows Fall Behind You by Kathy-Diane Leveille

People who disappeared left cast-off shadows of themselves, murky tremblings that slunk out of corners on drizzly autumn afternoons. They lurked offstage, silent or sighing or reaching out to run a finger across her arm. They were the curtains fluttering in the window on a breezeless morning, the musty scent that arose when opening an abandoned cellar door. (from Let the Shadows Fall Behind You, page 13)

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading Let the Shadows Fall Behind You. Is it a murder mystery? Is it a coming-of-age story? I was pulled into the story from the first page by Kathy-Diane Leveille's beautiful writing, and I never knew where she was taking me. There were many twists and turns in this story, but I was happy to go along for the ride.

Leveille tells the story of Brannagh Maloney, a woman with a tortured past involving the disappearance of her father, the murder of her mother, and an abusive grandfather, among other things. The book opens in northern Ontario in 1970. Brannagh is on a bird counting expedition in the wilderness and has fallen in love with Nikki, the leader of the research project. When Nikki leaves one day without a trace, she worries that something bad has happened to him, and these fears prompt her to return home.

She reunites with her childhood friends, Annie, Tish, and Dianne, and it's obvious that Brannagh's ties to these women have fractured over the years. She realizes that she needs to face her past head on, confront the evasive Annie, and learn the truth about the murders that happened so many years before. Brannagh is haunted by her past, haunted by all the disappearances she's had to endure, and Leveille does a wonderful job making you actually feel Brannagh's pain.

There's a lot going on in Let the Shadows Fall Behind You, as Leveille shows Brannagh in the present trying to figure out what happened to Nikki; goes back to Brannagh's childhood, introducing readers to her eccentric grandmother and Aunt Thelma and the hardships she endured after her mother walked out of their lives; and walks readers through her entire relationship with Nikki and his equally tortured past. At first all the movement from past to present was a bit confusing, but by the time I finished the book, I felt that the structure of the story worked well. And Leveille is brilliant when it comes to building suspense. She drops little bombs, then waits several pages to spell it all out, which had me burning through the pages like crazy to find out what happens.

I also was captivated by the characters. I honestly didn't like any of them when I first started reading, but they were well developed, and by the end of the book I felt I had a better understanding of who they really were and what made them act the way they did. The characters are not who you think they are, and I liked that my feelings for them were all over the place.

Leveille expertly plays with your emotions and really gets you thinking about the bonds of family, friendships, and lovers. Let the Shadows Fall Behind You is a well-written, complex story about coming to terms with the past so that you can look forward to the future. If you're looking for a story about relationships with a little mystery and suspense thrown in, then give this one a try.

Let the Shadows Fall Behind You also was reviewed by:

Booking Mama
A Reader's Respite
Cheryl's Book Nook

If I missed your link, let me know in the comments!

Disclosure:  I received a free copy of Let The Shadows Fall Behind You from the author for review purposes.

Children of the Flames by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel

Dr. Josef Mengele, an SS doctor at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, performed gruesome medical experiments on twins and others and earned the nickname "Angel of Death" for his stance during the selections when each train carrying Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis arrived at the camp. He would stand in his white medical coat with arms spread, indicating who would die and who would be spared with a flick of the wrist. Mengele's field of interest was genetics, and he singled out twins, dwarfs, and Jews with "Aryan" looks, among others, for his experiments, wooing the children with candy and special privileges one minute and injecting them with unknown substances (and worse) the next.

In Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz, several of the twins who managed to survive the experiments (despite a grim 90 percent mortality rate) tell their stories. For some, it was the first time they publicly discussed the loss of their families to the gas chambers and the horrors they endured at the hands of an arrogant and evil doctor. Lucette Matalon Lagnado, a journalist, and Sheila Cohn Dekel, writer and widow of a Mengele survivor, piece together the lives of the twins before, during, and after the war through interviews. One of the twins, Eva Mozes Kor, helped reunite the twins through the organization she established, CANDLES, or Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors.

Quotes from the twins are inserted into a biography of Mengele, showing parallels as well as distinct differences in the lives of the twins and the life of the Nazi doctor. Mengele lived a privileged life, and he was well known and well liked in the town of Günzburg. The twins also had happy lives with their families before the war, but when the war ended, the twins were forced to pick up the pieces of their broken lives without their parents, children, or other relatives and sometimes without their twin siblings. Not only did they lose their loved ones at the hands of the Nazis, but they also were left with horrible memories of the experiments they endured.

While the twins were left suffering emotionally and physically and unable to lead normal adult lives, Mengele fled the country to South America, first to Argentina, then to Paraguay and Brazil. He lived in the company of other Nazis who fled Germany and used the money sent from his father to invest in businesses and buy nice homes and cars, etc. How Mengele managed to elude the authorities is detailed in the book, based on his personal diaries, an autobiographical novel he wrote in exile, letters he wrote to his family, and interviews with numerous people who helped him along the way. It was especially hard to read about his later years in Brazil when he was the most-wanted war criminal, and he was complaining about family not writing to him and how he had to remain in hiding after openly flaunting his identity in previous years. The fact that he died without ever being convicted for his evil actions or indicating even a smidgen of remorse for all the deaths and grief he caused makes me sick to my stomach.

Children of the Flames is a hard book to read, but I believe it is important for the Auschwitz twins to have a voice and for us to remember and learn from their stories. Here is a quote from one of the twins that really affected me. He is talking about dealing with people who wonder why the Jews didn't fight back.

"The Jews who were brought by cattle car to Auschwitz weren't told they were going to a death camp: they believed they were going to be working. They had not worked in years. They were hungry, and they wanted to eat. They thought that by working for the Germans, they would have food and money, and they'd be able to survive until the war ended.

That's why they went quietly -- that's why they didn't cry, or shout.

And then Dr. Mengele would tell them, 'Please take off your clothes because you need to take a shower.' And off they went into the gas chambers, very quietly. Everything was done very quietly. When was there even time for an uprising?

There were people inside the camps who found ways to smuggle out letters to relatives and friends describing what the Germans were doing.

But absolutely no one believed them." (Menashe Lorinczi, page 195)

Children of the Flames isn't for the faint of heart, but I highly recommend it if you're interested in a different kind of Holocaust story and are curious about the hunt for Nazi war criminals. Be prepared to cry and get angry at the injustice of it all. While I can't say I "enjoyed" the book given its subject matter, Children of the Flames was powerful, informative, and eye-opening.

******

Children of the Flames is the 12th book I've read for the WWII reading challenge I'm co-hosting at War Through the Generations.

Disclosure:  I purchased my copy of Children of the Flames.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

The officer tore the photograph in half and dropped the pieces on the floor. The he turned, the heels of his shiny boots grinding into the pictures, and left the apartment. Without a word, the other two officers followed. Papa stepped forward and closed the door behind him.

Annemarie relaxed the clenched fingers of her right hand, which still clutched Ellen's necklace. She looked down, and saw that she had imprinted the Star of David into her palm. (from Number the Stars, pages 48-49)

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, the Newbery medal winner for 1990, tells the story of a 10-year-old girl in Copenhagen during World War II. Annemarie knows what it's like to live freely, but the Germans now occupy Denmark. Her younger sister doesn't know any life other than this, and she doesn't know to fear the German soldiers on every street corner.

Annemarie's best friend, Ellen, is Jewish, and when her parents flee the city to avoid "relocation," Annemarie's family takes Ellen in. A late-night visit from the Germans looking for Ellen's family brings memories of Annemarie's older sister to the surface. Lise died several years prior, and her death is a mystery to Annemarie, whose family remains friendly with Lise's fiance Peter, a member of the resistance. When Annemarie's mother takes the three girls to her fisherman brother in an effort to protect Ellen, things heat up, and Annemarie must find the courage to complete a dangerous mission to keep her best friend alive.

When my daughter put Number the Stars aside for a different summer reading book, I thought I'd give it a try. It's a quick read for an adult, as it's a middle-grade book spanning less than 140 pages. Lowry is a talented writer, and I can see why this book won the Newbery. Her characters are compelling and real, and there is plenty of tension and suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat. Since Annemarie is just a year older than my daughter, I kept wondering how my daughter would react in Annemarie's shoes. It was interesting to view the war through the eyes of a child -- a child who might not think herself brave normally but is willing to go the extra mile when it counts. Many heroes during wartime are ordinary men, women, and children.

It's important to remember that Number the Stars is written for children ages 10 and up. While I know what is meant by "relocating" the Jews and what would happen if those in hiding were discovered, children reading about this period in history for the first time might not. Lowry does a good job presenting the truth while leaving out the horrific details. Annemarie and Ellen are told that the relocations are not a good thing, and the adults only give Annemarie (and thus, the reader) the information they need to understand the story.

Lowry includes an afterword explaining her inspiration for the story (a close friend of hers was a child in Copenhagen during the German occupation) and separating fact from fiction. I was pleased that I learned something new about a scientific development used to smuggle Jews out of Denmark, but I don't want to give anything away. I highly recommend Number the Stars for older children (ages 9 to 11) interested in stories set during WWII and adults looking for a lighter read about the German occupation of Denmark and the role of the resistance in saving the lives of many Jews.

******

Number the Stars is the 11th book I've read for the WWII reading challenge I'm co-hosting at War Through the Generations.

Disclosure:  I borrowed Number the Stars from the library. 

Bloody Good by Georgia Evans

Alone in her cell, Bela looked out of the window toward the mountains on the horizon. Maybe the vampires would prevail. They could fly, had no need to respect frontiers, and guns or weapons could not harm them permanently. But had the foul Germans taken on monsters who would destroy them in return? And how had mere mortals coerced vampires to their cause? Using the same threats they'd used on her? Except fairies were far more likely to succumb to the rigors of the camps than vampires. Maybe the vampires had joined of their own volition, to thrive on the carnage and the killing.

Bela could only guess. Just as she could only guess at the safety or otherwise of her kindred. Who knew if any survived? None possessed her strength of telepathic powers. Maybe they were all dead, but she dared not risk refusing to collaborate, just in case the Germans kept their word and did spare her family. (from Bloody Good, pages 15-16)

Bloody Good is the first book in a supernatural trilogy set in England during World War II that asks, "What if the Nazis had recruited vampires to perform some of their dirty deeds?" Obviously, Georgia Evans (a pen name for the author Rosemary Laurey) asks us to suspend belief, and if you are able to do so, Bloody Good offers a light, entertaining read on what normally would be a heavy topic.

Alice Doyle is a doctor in the village of Brytewood who lives with her grandmother, Helen. Helen claims to be a Devonshire pixie, and she's constantly encouraging Alice to let go of her firm grasp on science and recognize her own pixie powers. Alice is short-handed, having only nurse Gloria to help her care for the locals, children who evacuated London to escape the bombings, and the workers in a nearby factory, which likely is building things for the war effort but no one knows for sure. Peter Watson is a conscientious objector assigned as Alice's first-aid assistant, and his CO status causes Alice -- whose brothers are off somewhere fighting -- to immediately dislike him. The two are forced to work together just as strange things begin happening around the village.

Vampires are roaming the English countryside, and they are working for the Nazis. A fairy is held prisoner and used by the lead vampires (that's what I'm calling them, anyway) for her ability to telepathically monitor the whereabouts of the vampires on a mission for the Reich.

The story shifts between the locals of Brytewood to the vampires stalking them to the imprisoned fairy. Evans tells an interesting story of two people falling in love amid a battle involving supernatural creatures, from vampires and fairies to pixies, werefoxes, and dragons. (I wasn't expecting the dragons, but it was an interesting touch.)

Bloody Good isn't a literary masterpiece, but it's a fun read. The only drawbacks for me were the explicit sex scenes that did nothing to further the plot. They didn't bother me enough to stop reading the book, but if you're not into that sort of thing, consider yourself warned.

Evans resolves only a few of the issues that arise in Bloody Good, and my curiosity as to how it all plays out and my desire to revisit these characters (especially Alice's feisty grandmother, Helen) means I plan on reading the rest of the series. Bloody Awful is slated for publication in July, and Bloody Right will be published in August. Click here to read excerpts from all three.

******

Bloody Good definitely is a different kind of fiction book about World War II, but it still counts for the WWII reading challenge I'm co-hosting at War Through the Generations. This is the 10th book I've read for the challenge.

Disclosure:  I received a free copy of Bloody Good from Joan Schulhafer Publishing & Media Consulting for review purposes.

Mailbox Monday -- June 8 & June 15

Unfortunately it's Monday, and the weekend has ended. Life has been so crazy lately, and I feel so far behind. But on a bright note, it's time for another Mailbox Monday (hosted by Marcia from The Printed Page), where bookish folk talk about the books that entered their homes over the past week. (Click the picture to see everyone's lists.) I'm posting two weeks worth of books today because I missed last Monday.

I need new books like I need a hole in my head, yet The Girl and I accompanied Serena to the library sale in her town on Saturday. We got there just before it opened, and we were in and out in about 40 minutes. The Girl had a blast perusing the children's section on her own, and I was able to add to my collection of WWII books.


Here are the books I received for the June 8th mailbox:



Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane (contest win from Fizzy Thoughts)



Gifts of War by Mackenzie Ford (from Shelf Awareness)



A Match for Mary Bennet by Eucharista Ward (from Sourcebooks)



Rubber Side Down: The Biker Poet Anthology edited by Jose (Joe Go) Gouveia (contest win from Savvy Verse & Wit)


The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist (from Other Press LLC)



Dixie Divas by Virginia Brown (a surprise ARC from Bell Bridge Books)



Only You by Deborah Grace Staley (a surprise ARC from Bell Bridge Books)


I received 2 books in the mail last week:



Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland (contest win from Linus's Blanket)



Hugh & Bess by Susan Higginbotham (from Sourcebooks for an August tour)


Here's what I got at the library sale for a just $7.50:



To Kill the Devil: The Attempts on the Life of Adolf Hitler by Herbert Molloy Mason Jr.



Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II by Joseph E. Persico



Motherland: Beyond the Holocaust: A Mother-Daughter Journey to Reclaim the Past by Fran Schumer Chapman



Forever by Pete Hamill



Obsessed by Ted Dekker



Skin by Ted Dekker

And two old books for which I could not locate covers online:

Death's Head by Campbell Black

A Mortal Flower by Han Suyin


Here's what The Girl snagged at the library sale for just $3.25:



The Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke



The Chameleon Wore Chartreuse (A Chet Gecko Mystery) by Bruce Hale



The Ooze (Ghosts of Fear Street) by R.L. Stine



Stay Out of the Basement (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine



Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine



Welcome to Camp Nightmare (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine



Night in Werewolf Woods (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine



The Curse of Camp Cold Lake (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine



Night of the Living Dummy III (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine



The Girl Who Cried Monster (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine



You Can't Scare Me (Goosebumps) by R.L. Stine

You can see that The Girl cleared out the R.L. Stine books in just under 3.5 seconds! LOL I still haven't found homes for all these books, and my husband must be thrilled about the piles accumulating near the coffee table. I probably should sit out the July 11 library sale.

What books did you welcome into your home recently?