Wednesday, June 22, 2011

First DCF book finished

I finished The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy tonight.  It was a good read, and a quick one.  I found the format particularly interesting, since the writer used photocopies of her mother's journal and "poesiealbum" to start each chapter.  As these were written in German, the writer translated them.  After each translation, there was an original poem that revealed some of what her mother was feeling at the time and gave a bit more explanation of what was happening as well.  Debbie Levy's mother was a young girl at the time the Nazis were in power in Germany.  Her mother escaped Germany and came to America just six hours before her home was raided by the Nazis.  Had her family not left, she would not have lived to tell this story.  This is an amazing story of luck, persistence, and incredible loss, and it is told in an intriguing way.  I would recommend this book to any of my students who like poetry and have an interest in World War Two or The Holocaust. A fantastic and poignant line from the early part of the novel is the following: "But then, many things are happening, / and many things are being spoken of, / that never have happened / and were never spoken of / before. "  

2 comments:

Debbie Levy said...

Dear Mrs. Wald--and Mrs. Wald's students!--You might be interested in having a look at the "Poesiealbum Project," a blog where I post readers' "poesies" that they create in response to THE YEAR OF GOODBYES. Here's the address:

http://theyearofgoodbyes.blogspot.com/.

It's also reachable here: http://www.theyearofgoodbyes.com.

Thanks so much for reading!

Best regards,
Debbie Levy
debbie@debbielevybooks.com

Mrs. Wald said...

How exciting that you read and commented on my post! Thanks so much for sharing your blog. I will check it out.