From School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-Through the words and memories of Jack Mandelbaum, Warren presents a harrowing account of a Jewish boy's experience in Nazi prison camps. Mandelbaum had lived a comfortable life with his family in Gdynia, Poland, until the German invasion forced them to flee to a relative's village in 1939. Later, when the Jews were sent to concentration camps, the 12-year-old became separated from the rest of his family and wound up in the Blechhammer camp. By describing events through the boy's voice, the author does an excellent job of letting his words carry the power of the story. She avoids historical analysis, sticking to Mandelbaum's experiences, and brings readers into the nightmarish world of the concentration camp with a strong feeling of immediacy. As with many stories of great suffering, some of the minor details, such as risking death to steal a jar of marmalade, deliver the most impact. Besides the physical hardship, Warren conveys how frustrating and confusing it was for a child in such an environment. Once liberated, the young man learned the sad fate of his family and as he ironically observed, had he known his parents and siblings would not survive, he might not have struggled so hard to live himself. Black-and-white contemporary photographs illustrate the book. This story works as an introduction to the Holocaust and will also interest readers of Lila Perl's Four Perfect Pebbles (Greenwillow, 1996), Anne Frank's diary, and other works on the period.-Steven Engelfried, Deschutes County Library, Bend, ORCopyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Gr. 5-10. Simply told, Warren's powerful story blends the personal testimony of Holocaust survivor Jack Mandelbaum with the history of his time, documented by stirring photos from the archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Mandelbaum was 12 when the Nazis came to Poland in 1939. At first the thought of war was "thrilling." Then he saw his prosperous, happy home torn apart, and he spent three years as a teenager in the death camps in Germany, where he survived by a combination of courage, friendship, and luck. Warren, who never knew any Jews when she was growing up in a small Nebraska town, brings both passion and the distance of the outsider to the story. True to Mandelbaum's youthful viewpoint, she lets the story unfold slowly so readers don't know until the end what happened to Jack's mother and brother after they were separated, or whether his friends survived. The combination of Mandelbaum's experience and Warren's reporting of the whole picture makes this an excellent introduction for readers who don't know much about the history. There's only one false note. Unlike Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures (1998) and many other personal accounts, there's a radiant innocence here: everything "before" was blissful ("It was a lovely life"), and, even in the camps, Jack never has an ugly thought. The design is open and inviting with clear type, many photos, and an excellent multimedia bibliography. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


VOYA
"A valuable addition to Holocaust literature for children and teens and should be in every middle school collection."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Living happily in Poland, twelve-year-old Jack Mandelbaum is hardly aware that he is Jewish. Then Hitler comes to power. Forced to work for the Nazis, then torn from his family as they are herded into a concentration camp, Jack fights to survive. Each day is a struggle to get enough food, stay clean, and avoid physical harm. Jack's friend tells him to think of it as a game, to work hard and not take anything personally. But life in the camps is brutal, and Hitler's guards are skilled at crushing a prisoner's spirit.

Award-winning author Andrea Warren powerfully evokes Jack's experiences in this gripping true story of a boy growing up in the Holocaust.

About the Author:
A former journalist and teacher, Andrea Warren tells the extraordinary stories of ordinary individuals in her critically acclaimed books Orphan Train Rider, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for nonfiction, and Pioneer Girl. She lives in Prairie Village, KS, near the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education cofounded by Jack Mandelbaum.

FROM THE CRITICS

Horn Book

...this book is not only a compelling testimony to the Holocaust but an involving survival story as well.

Bulletin of the Center for Children' s Books

...Mandelbaum's unadorned words have blunt impact.

Children's Literature

A boy's youth is the subject of Andrea Warren's Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps. At twelve, Jack Mendelbaum's successful father sent his family to the countryside to escape their Nazi-occupied Polish town. He told Jack, his eldest son, "I am counting on you to take care of our family." Jack did his best to support his family, taking on the tasks of grown men. Jack kept his promise until he faced the "worst moment" of his life when his actions separated him from his mother and brother forever. Alone at Blechhammer concentration camp, Jack's quick thinking and positive attitude helped him survive hunger, cold, sadistic guards, unbearable duties and the sorrows of those around him. He uses memories of boyhood competitions to beat "Hitler at his game." Above all, his primary strategy "was not to allow myself to hate. I knew I could be consumed by hate." Mandelbaum has followed this approach his entire life; he has taken "tolerance and forgiveness as the themes of my life," working with others to recognize and stop evil so that "there is hope for humanity." 2001, HarperCollins, . Ages 10 up. Reviewer: Susie Wilde

VOYA

Jack Mandelbaum, a Polish Jew, had a happy family life until 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II. Fifteen-year-old Jack is sent to Nazi concentration camps. Despite fear, starvation, and other horrors, he survives. Teachers often use fiction to introduce the Holocaust—particularly the concentration camp experience—to younger students, who are not as emotionally ready as older teens for titles such as Elie Wiesel's Night. Warren's book would be a perfect nonfiction title for fifth through seventh grade. The author gets the tone just right for the age level. She does not skirt the horrors, but because Jack maintains a positive attitude, this book is not a devastating read. Warren includes enough background information so that students new to the subject will have some context, but not so much that the book will seem old hat to students who are already familiar with the Holocaust. The author includes good supplementary material, such as more information on concentration camps, and lists recommendations of excellent print and nonprint resources, organized according to age. Because few of Jack's family photos survived the war, the photographs used in the book are sometimes generic WWII-era photos—Hitler, a group of religious Jews, lines of people arriving at an unidentified concentration camp. These are high quality and evocative, however, and act more as background to Jack's story. Despite that quibble, this book is a valuable addition to Holocaust literature for children and teens and should be in every middle school collection. Index. Photos. Source Notes. Further Reading. VOYA CODES: 4Q 5P M (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses;Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8). 2001, HarperCollins, 160p, . Ages 12 to 14. Reviewer: Alice F. Stern SOURCE: VOYA, June 2001 (Vol. 24, No. 2)

School Library Journal