Yellow Star

Yellow Star
By:  Jennifer Roy
Marshall Cavendish Coporation
Copyright 2006

                                                                      Yellow Star

      This was a very hard book to put down. I am not one to read for fun, but I really feel in love with this book and was sad when I got to the very end. What I loved about it was that it was an account of a survivor from the Holocaust. In fact, I found it more interesting that it was from the perspective of a Polish-Jewish child. I often think about how horrible the Holocaust was, but never what it would have been like to live through it as a Jew, let alone be a survivor.
      Throughout my read I was so impressed with how driven and clever Syvia's father was. It made me wonder if my own father could have tricked the Nazis as much as Papa did. The fact that it was told in poems made it a faster and less intense read. I really appreciated that. I also found it really helpful that Roy began each "part" with an introduction to what was going on, during the war, at that time. The end was very moving. I would use this book to teach the Holocaust with older elementary students. It's very vivid and younger students may feel overwhelmed, however, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. It left me with a lot of questions that if I ever had the opportunity to ask a survivor, I would.