Marika

Publishers Weekly

In this promising debut novel, Cheng sensitively mines her mother's experiences as the daughter of assimilated Jews in 1930s and '40s Budapest. Marika, age six, worries much more about her parents' separation than about her uncle's advice to change the name of her doll from Maxi to something "less Jewish": "Everything I had heard about being Jewish or not Jewish was crazy anyway.... Really, we were no more Jewish than [the nanny] or the cook." Apa, her father, advises her to think of herself as Roman Catholic, and Marika, who narrates, is happy to agree. Apa is strong and charismatic, unlike Marika's odd mother, who is so ineffectual that even Marika calls her by her first name, Anya. Cheng stays true to her protagonist's perspective as Marika comes of age over 10 cataclysmic years. While Apa and his brother anxiously track Hitler's rise in faraway Germany (and take measures to protect themselves), Marika reports on more personal indications of unrest-among them, her changing status at school, where kids start whispering that she shouldn't be attending mass, and the bullying by local boys near the family's country house that makes her regard her stay there as dangerous rather than restorative. The author inhabits the character so smoothly that her story reads almost like memoir; readers will almost certainly be moved by her evocation of Marika's lost world. Ages 10-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

VOYA

Marika and her older brother Andrew live in Hungary with their stockbroker father and mother. The Jewish family does not practice its faith, instead attending Mass and celebrating Christmas and Easter. The book covers a ten-year period as Marika narrates her life from age six through January 1945 and the end of World War II. Although at first Marika is too young to comprehend the full meaning of the war and certain adult situations, Marika's parents and brother later continue to protect her from the war as much as possible. When her parents separate over her father's affair with his business partner's wife, Marika is understandably confused. Her father builds a wall in their apartment, and he lives on the other side while his business partner's family lives downstairs. The loosely jointed story line might be appropriate to the age of the protagonist, but it is choppy, making the book appear disorganized rather than flow smoothly. The major problem, however, occurs with the sequencing of events. Individually titled chapters are followed by a date, including month and year, but there is a large gap between February 1940 and April 1944, the period between Marika's eleventh and fifteenth years. These missing years would make her most vulnerable as a character and would strengthen the book if included. Several errors in dating the chapters also create confusion for the careful reader trying to follow the story's chronological approach. The slightly odd cover artwork also does not seem to tie into the story line, its symbolic meaning lost to the reader. Additionally, the protagonist's vernacular might not be appropriate to the time period. Use of phrases such as "ungrateful brat" and "thanksbut no thanks" seems more modern than the novel's time period. Overall, the book is a disappointment and cannot be recommended. VOYA CODES: 2Q 2P M (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8). 2002, Front Street, 160p,
— Mary Ann Capan

School Library Journal

Gr 4-8-In 1934, Marika is six. Her world in Hungary is very ordinary; her biggest concerns are school and the wall dividing her home into two apartments: one for her father, the other for her mother, brother, and herself. Although her family is Jewish, they live like Christians, celebrating Christmas and going to mass. As she grows older, the war comes closer, and she begins to feel its effects. When she is 16, the Nazis take over the country, and she poses as the Catholic niece of a family friend. Deceptively simple, the story, told in first person, captures a child's life as she grows into the realization of the horrors around her. Marika is a well-realized and sympathetic character, believable in both her childlike concerns and her more adult fears as the war affects her directly. Her family is realistically flawed, especially her beloved father, who has an affair with a neighbor's wife, yet does everything he can to shelter Marika from harm. At times the brevity of the story makes it seem rather disjointed, but Cheng brings Marika and her world alive with her simple prose, investing readers in the protagonist's life. There is a lot of World War II and Holocaust literature available for young people, but libraries needing a fresh voice could consider adding this intriguing offering.-Amy Lilien-Harper, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A child's-eye view written in beautifully spare prose gives a special quality to this historical piece. Marika Schnurmacher is six years old in 1934 Budapest, and she feels confused and helpless about many things. First, she arrives home from vacation to find that her father has walled off part of their apartment to live by himself. Although she sees him often, Marika longs for his return and can't comprehend why he has left. She also can't understand why the family's Jewish name and heritage is such a worry to her father and uncle; they practice Catholicism, after all, and when she tries to ask questions about the whispers she hears about Germany, nobody will answer. Marika spends her childhood reading voraciously and writing a story-Little Lord Schnurmacher-that mixes her own life and hopes with classic literature. Shame about her family's wealth and her odd mother hinders an outwardly peaceful relationship with working class, openly Jewish friend Zsofi. As years go by and WWII progresses, Marika loses her confusion-everything from war to family dynamics becomes painfully clear-but not her sparely written vulnerability. The last few chapters are about the family's separation and Marika's brief time in hiding, and then their reunion, pale and hungry, after Russian soldiers free Budapest from the Nazi occupation. Reading more like a series of vignettes than a novel, with a few distancing gaps in time and one distracting inconsistency (between the year and her age), Marika is a poignant emotional portrait. (Fiction. 10-14)