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Overview
Alice is eleven years old, and it is wartime. She is on a train with no seats, no lights, no sanitary facilities. Her parents and her grandmother are missing, and Alice doesn't know where she is going. Maybe she will get to play outside again, maybe she will see her parents. But as the train rolls on, Alice begins to realize that just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they do. "No reader will be immune to the plight of these people, powerless in the face of overwhelming evil."-- Kirkus ReviewsDuring World War II, eleven-year-old Alice, whose life has been sheltered and comfortable, discovers some important things about herself and the people she meets when she and her grandfather board a train and begin an increasingly intolerable journey to an unknown destination.
Editorials
The ALAN Review -
All that eleven-year-old Alice had known was happiness with her parents and grandparents. Then, two years ago, they moved into the basement of their house, and Alice has not been outside since. Now her parents have disappeared, and Alice and her grandparents are roused in the middle of the night and herded to the rail station. Separated from her grandmother, Alice and her grandfather are crammed into a rail car headed for an unknown destination. As the trip progresses, Alice begins to understand what it means to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Pausewang is both touching and brutally honest about the horrors that Jews underwent during Hitler's reign. Readers learn of the unfounded hatred directed toward the Jews, their inhumane treatment, and the maturity that comes quickly with tragedy. However, Pausewang also shows that love and an optimistic spirit can prevail in spite of horrendous circumstances.VOYA -
Alice Dubsky's final journey begins in the cattle car of a train and ends in the "shower rooms" of Auschwitz. But her journey is also one of self-discovery as she learns the truths about the Holocaust. On the train twelve-year-old Alice relives memories from her childhood and years in hiding in the basement apartment of her former family home. Kept in the dark, both literally and figuratively, by her parents and grandparents, Alice doesn't know about what is happening to the Jews in Germany. But she slowly awakens to the harsh realities hidden from her through the indignities and inhumanity of the cattle car and the knowledge gained from her fellow deportees. This is a descriptive, moving, and frightening story. The reader learns of Alice's losses, of her home, her freedom, her parents, her grandparents, and finally her innocence and her life. But the most powerful impact is felt through Alice's reactions to all that is happening around her. This novel could be used in conjunction with the recent Fragments by Binjamin Wilkomirski (Schocken, 1996/VOYA, February 1997). Its detail gives body to many of the impressions found in Fragments. It would also be good companion reading to The Diary of Anne Frank. VOYA Codes: 5Q 4P J S (Hard to imagine it being any better written, Broad general YA appeal, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).Book Details
Published
December 28, 1998
Publisher
New York : Puffin Books, 1998.
Pages
160
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780141301044