The book: Chance: Escape from the Holocaust by Uri Shulevitz
One word: WOW.
Okay two words. FREAKING WOW
I cannot tell you how fantastic this book is. Just read. It is not easy, it is sad, heartbreaking, scary, beautiful, hopeful and more. It covers all the emotions. It shows you a piece of World War II that we don’t know about. Again, WOW and go read. For mature readers at least 12-13 and up, but I would recommend older. But if you read with them, ages 10 and up could handle it.
This story is about Uri Shulevitz who, as a very young child, leaves Poland at the start of World War II and leaves for the Soviet Union where they assume they will find safety. He and his family, due to Uri’s name (same as a radical artist) are denied the papers to safely live in this new country. They will be eventually sent to a prison camp where they will experience starving, forced labor, illness and other horrors. Eventually they will leave to settle in Turkistan where their troubles are just beginning.
The illustrations are black and white, intertwined with the text, showing how Uri’s love of art was a salvation, but also showing the extreme difficulties they faced. It is not a pretty sight, literally and figuratively. It is, however, some of the most physically lovely (and lonely) images. The lines are whimsical, the blurriness allows the seriousness to be a bit less harsh, but does not shy away from things. The illustrations feel as if they are coming from the child Uri, but of course through the eyes of adult Uri.
Again, a powerful read, a strong and mature read. A memoir that reads as fiction, but was all too real.