Memoir Monday...

When I Grow Up by Ken Krimstein... New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein’s new graphic nonfiction book, based on six of hundreds of newly discovered, never-before-published autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish teens on the brink of WWII―found in 2017 hidden in a Lithuanian church cellar.

These autobiographies, long thought destroyed by the Nazis, were written as entries for three competitions held in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, just before the horror of the Holocaust forever altered the lives of the young people who wrote them.

Collected in three contests sponsored by *YIVO in the 1930s, they were part of the institute’s drive to gather information about the everyday lives of Jewish adolescents amid political and economic turmoil. Young people of all education, class, occupation and political affiliation were asked to write about themselves, their families and their relationship with them, their teachers and schools, boyfriends and girlfriends and youth and political organizations. The stories were anonymous — the authors submitted their names separately for the purpose of the prizes — and they were urged not to embellish

In When I Grow Up, Krimstein shows us the stories of these six young men and women in riveting, almost cinematic narratives, full of humor, yearning, ambition, and all the angst of the teenage years. It’s as if half a dozen new Anne Frank stories have suddenly come to light, framed by the dramatic story of the documents’ rediscovery.

Beautifully illustrated, heart-wrenching, and bursting with life, When I Grow Up reveals how the tragedy that is about to befall these young people could easily happen again, to any of us, if we don’t learn to listen to the voices from the past.

This work by Ken Krimstein has gotten a lot of buzz. It's interesting that a graphic novel is what was chosen to bring these stories to life, but this form may make these stories more accessible. I look forward to reading this, but am not sure if I will be able to enjoy the life they are sharing with the knowledge of what was to come. With the essays being submitted anonymously, but their names still recorded, I wonder if we will find out what ultimately happens to these young people. Or maybe we aren't suppose to find out, but feel the connection of these essays to our own youth.

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing and in bookstores tomorrow, November 16th.

*YIVO, acronym for Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institute in Vilnus, or the INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH RESEARCH is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. 

When We Danced on Water by Evan Fallenberg... A TLC Tour & Review!

When We Danced on Water by Evan Fallenberg... Have you ever been surprised by a book?! Thought it would be about something and it turned out to be something totally different? Something that burst with a story that faintly resembled what it started as? That's what happened as I turned the pages of When We Danced on Water. What I thought initially was that this was going to be a love story; a May/December romance between two people. One of which was recovering from a war she served in and a love affair that ended badly. What I read though was a story so rich and encompassing that I still feel the story even after I've turned that last page.

In a small cafe in Tel Aviv, Vivi, a waitress in her 40's reignites the passion of 85 year old Teo as they see each other every day. Their conversations become more intense until Vivi, a supposed artist who can't stay with one project too long, is inspired by Teo's passion for the beauty & discipline of dance; of ballet. Teo was once a gifted ballet dancer, well respected and applauded. As a gift, Vivi decides to celebrate his life and accomplishments. But what becomes an amazing gift has the consequences of almost crushing Teo as he is brought back to long-buried secrets and painful memories of his life spent surviving WWII and the extermination of the Jews by the Third Reich.

What I thought was a simple love story, swept me off my feet into a time and place where the carefree life of a young Jewish boy could change with the slightest bit of circumstance. With lush prose, we are transported back in time to both Teo's life during WWII and Vivi's life as a young girl madly in love during a time of war. Though both wars were different, both had a devastating effect on their lives. And it is their shared pain, and their opening up to one another that finally frees them from their pasts.

I was totally absorbed in the stories of Vivi and Teo. Heartbreaking and believable, When We Dance on Water is the kind of book that will stay with you... The characters, their stories, the consequences of their actions. The setting of this story is Poland, Berlin and Tel Aviv, which seems fresh and unique.

Beautifully written, but there are parts of Teo's life surviving the Holocaust that may disturb you, as there was sexual abuse at the hands of Teo's torturer. I would definitely recommend this book to reading groups, and readers who enjoy stories taking place during WWII.

About the Author... Evan Fallenberg is the author of Light Fell, winner of the American Library Association’s Barbara Gittings Stonewall Book Award for Literature and the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. His translation of Meir Shalev’s A Pigeon and a Boy won the Jewish Book Council Award for Fiction and was short-listed for the PEN Translation Prize. He lives and teaches in Tel Aviv.

Today's post is part of Evan Fallenberg's TLC Book Tour! I want to thank TLC Book Tours for sending along a copy for review! I thoroughly enjoyed it! And Readers can enjoy When We Danced on Water this coming June, when it will be released by Harper Perennial!

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry... a Review on a Book Stirring Controversy

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry

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Ten-year-old Annemarie must find the courage to go on a mission to save her best friends life... While the Nazi soldiers are "relocating" the Jews of Denmark.

Lois Lowry, the author of numerous children’s books, recently received a letter from a teacher at the Taurus American College in Taurus Turkey informing her that her book Number the Stars was banned by the government.

“Last week the inspectors from the Turkish Department of Education came to our school and after reading one paragraph of your book, Number the Stars, banned the book at our school.”

Lois Lowry fans were outraged, along with a slew of librarians and teachers. There were calls to contact the National Coalition Against Censorship and the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. Officials at the at the US Consulate in Adana found that the book is still at the library and available on the shelves. After all this came out, the inspectors stated that they questioned whether young children in primary schools should be involved in subjects with strong religious or political connotations.

After reading about this controversy, first in School Library Journal, and then on Lois Lowry's website, my curiosity got the best of me and I bought a copy of Number the Stars to read since I never read it before.

Number the Stars is rooted in the Holocaust and tells the little known true story of the evacuation of Jews from Nazi-held Denmark. Lois Lowry is able to instill the fear of the Nazi occupation, the struggles of not only the Jews in Denmark, but of all the Danish people, and the courage of the Danish resistance in a mere 132 pages. It's a story of courage and of friendship as two little girls, one Jewish and one non-Jewish, who don't understand all the hatred are thrown into a war that makes no sense to anyone around them. One of the friends, Annemarie, is determined to save her Jewish friend, Ellen, from the Nazi's. Lois Lowry is a wonderful writer and even though this is written for ages 9 - 12, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The story was actually gripping at times, and a good introduction to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Though the reader isn't bombarded with images of Nazi concentration camps and there are only subtle subtle references to the goings on in other countries, the wrongness of the occupation and the unjust persecution of the Jewish people is plainly evident as the story unfolds. Even a simple question subtly drives home a point,

"What harm is a button shop? Mrs. Hirsch is such a nice lady."

The afterward in the book describes the history Number The Stars is actually based on, and the story is fascinating. Nearly 7000 people, almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark, were smuggled across the sea to Sweden. Swedish scientists worked on a special powder made up of dried rabbits blood and cocaine which if sniffed by the search dogs would numb the sense of smell and thus prevent detection of people hidden away in the boats.

If you haven't read Number The Stars by Lois Lowry, I would encourage you to read it. It's a wonderfully written story about a sensitive subject, but written from the perspective of a little girl. Sometimes the innocence of a child can teach us amazing lessons...

*P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready! And it's a bargain at $4.40!

Penguin Luck by Kay Mupetson... A Review

Penguin Luck by Kay Mupetson

From the Author... In the novel Penguin Luck, Doreen Lowe is a young, sophisticated junior associate in a small Manhattan law firm that primarily serves the lower echelons of society. Regularly visited by three ghosts, Doreen is forced to listen to their pleas that she "carry on for them"- after the Holocaust- all while balancing the demands of her career and personal life.

After Doreen marries a banker with an entrepreneurial spirit, he achieves his dream of establishing a telecommunications company. Within a few years, Doreen is serving as the company's legal counsel while simultaneously raising a son, but is still being tormented by her spirits. As the young couple rides out the tech boom of the late 1990s, Doreen must reconcile her unorthodox personal choices with her widowed father, her friends, and her large conscience. Penguin Luck is a compelling tale about one woman's emotional journey as she learns to cope with a burdensome family history, a trio of determined ghosts, and the power of luck.

Penguin Luck by Kay Mupetson was a surprising and refreshing novel. On the surface this could have been a simple story of a girl named Doreen working in a Manhattan law firm, with an immigrant background and a close family, who falls for a guy not her fiance and marries him. But the story isn't simple... it's about a family who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust, other family secrets, and how one balances living in the hustle & bustle of the corporate world and still honor your family. How Kay Mupetson does this is through her great writing and the 3 ghosts of Doreen's family's past, who we first meet on a subway ride in NYC - The 3 ghosts manifested to Doreen in the subway thinking they are on a train going to Auschwitz and this is where we find out that the 3 ghosts had died in the Holocaust. We find out later that these ghosts, relatives of Doreen, expect Doreen to fulfill her family's legacy... The characters are well written and the story is unique. An enjoyable read and one I'd to thank Jocelyn of Meryl L. Moss Media Relations for sending me a copy of! Thanks Jocelyn I really enjoyed Penguin Luck.

Annie's Ghosts by Steve Luxenberg... a Review

Annie's Ghost by Steve Luxenberg

A Journey Into a Family Secret

About the Book...

Beth Luxenberg always claimed to be an only child, but a chance mention led to the discovery that she had been hiding the existence of a sister, Annie. The girls had grown up together, living in a series of cramped apartments until Annie's commitment to a mental institution at the age of twenty-one. Why was Annie committed? How had Beth so thoroughly erased her sister's existence? Why had she wanted to?

At the age of 80 , and in fragile health, Beth Luxenberg casually mentioned to a new doctor that she had a disabled sister that was sent away at age 2. She was being treated for what the doctors thought initially were anxiety attacks but later would be diagnosed as depression. With his mother's emotional & physical problems, Steve Luxenberg and his sister decided not to probe the question they were dying to ask- What Sister?! The sister remained a total mystery until after the death of Beth Luxenberg, when a letter arrived in the mail.... a letter from Hebrew Memorial Park, the cemetery where Beth Luxenberg's parents were buried. The cemetery was offering to plant flowers on the family grave sites (something they offered yearly).... and listed 3 graves... the 2 grave sites for Steve's grandparents and 1 grave site for an Annie! More research into the cemetery records revealed that Annie was the mystery sister and that she had not died at age 2... she had died at age 53!

So begins the detective story that would lead Steve as far away as the Ukraine and as close as Beth Luxenberg's personal papers. A book about family secrets, but also about family. Mental institutions, the Holocaust, friends and the love & sadness that makes up a family, Steve's journalism background helps him research his family tree, but also to write an interesting story. Not just a family memoir, more like a fictional story. The characters are real people though and the story of family, a story we can all relate to in one way or another, written so compellingly that it holds your interest. For anyone who's ever wondered about their heritage, who's ever wanted to research their genealogy, Annie's Ghost will fascinate you. Slowly piecing together the bits of information Steve gathers from interviews, records and letters, sprinkled with memories of his parents and a peak in to some of those letters written between them, you will find yourself turning those pages! And wondering if a family secret revealed would change your whole perception of your family? Thanks to Julie of FSB Associates for sharing this book with me! I was drawn in immediately! Would you like to learn more about Annie's Ghost? Here's a link to Steve's website! And an Excerpt of Annie's Ghost!

Annie's Ghost would make a great book club choice! Plenty of things to discuss! The secrets that families keep and why? There's a reading guide HERE!

A Little About Steve...

Steve Luxenberg, an associate editor at The Washington Post, has worked for

more than 30 years as a newspaper editor and reporter.

Steve’s journalistic career began at The Baltimore Sun, where he worked for 11 years. He joined The Post in 1985 as deputy editor of the newspaper’s investigative/special projects staff, headed by assistant managing editor Bob Woodward. In 1991, he succeeded Woodward as head of the investigative staff. Post reporters working with Steve have won several major reporting awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes for explanatory journalism.

From 1996 to 2006, Steve was the editor of The Post’s Sunday Outlook section, which publishes original reporting and provocative commentary on a broad spectrum of political, historical and cultural issues.

For more info on Steve, the book or a look at his personal blog, please visit his website

*P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

Guest Post & Giveaway with Lawrence Kaplan, author of House of Ghosts

Please join me in welcoming to Chick with Books, author Lawrence Kaplan! His novel House of Ghosts is an important historical mystery which "grew out of his interest in World War II and the Holocaust, but was also shaped by a personal connection- his mother-in-law, Irene Lederer, was deported from Hungary along with nearly 1 million other Hungarian Jews and taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944." And now onto our guest....

The Truth Within The Fiction of House of Ghosts

House of Ghosts is an historical mystery novel. It was originally planned as a non-fiction book about an event that didn’t happen in World War II history. By that I mean that I set out to discover the reasons why U.S. Air Force bombers who flew over Auschwitz on a series of missions in 1944 never once let loose their bombs.

Deine freunde sind droben haute was the phrase that drove me. It was the taunt made at my mother-in-law, Irene Lederer, by an SS guard when she was an inmate in the hell of that camp. It means, “Your friends are overhead today.” And yes, they were overhead. Often. In 1944, American bombers flew directly over the camp on their way to bomb the I.G. Farben synthetic rubber and oil plant that was being constructed -- by the inmates at Auschwitz -- only four miles away.

By this time, the world knew of the murders taking place. Why didn’t those bombers attack to stop the genocide? The question haunted my mother-in-law, who was one of the lucky few to survive. It haunted me. So, I set out to find out why.

I spent thousands of hours researching at the Firestone Library at Princeton University. I conducted personal interviews. I learned that the bombers who flew over Auschwitz were members of the 15th U.S. Air Force based in Italy. They flew an astonishing forty plus missions in that same section of Poland. No attack was ever made; no attempt mounted to save the 700,000 Hungarian Jews who suffered there, awaiting the ultimate outcome - death, either from gassing, beatings, hanging or starvation.

The official story that I found again and again in my research was that neither the U.S. brass nor the pilots knew what lay beneath them as they flew to their bombing destination. But, then I read Sir Martin Gilbert's Auschwitz and the Allies. An inscription under one photograph claimed that it was taken at 22,000 feet by a B-17 bomber on one of the runs against the I.G. Farben plant. I was stunned. Surely, that was a mistake. I began contacting veterans' groups in an attempt to interview some of the men who flew these missions.

Pilots and crew were either deceased or wouldn't talk. Only one retired Air Force general was willing to share information. As a young captain, he flew a B-17 in the 15th Air Force during the war. His group was the 2nd Heavy Bombardment, based in Foggia, Italy. They flew missions over Germany, France and Poland. And yes, he said, the Poland runs took him over the death camp. The bombardier used the chimneys of the crematoria in Berkanau as landmarks to begin the bomb run. They flew as low as 12,000 feet and could see the trains unloading prisoners at the camp. He confirmed my worst suspicions, stating in no uncertain terms that they knew what they flew over. The massive complex with the crematoria stacks which belched smoke and ash into the sky was no amusement park, and everyone knew it.

But pilots follow orders. And no orders were ever given to drop a bomb -- not one -- on the camp. One 500-lb bomb would have been enough to stop the murder.

How could this be? I wanted to understand the United States and its social and political climate during this time. What influenced America's reactions? Why didn't the United States lift a finger -- not only to bomb the camp, but to help the helpless gain entry into the country? Why, instead, was immigration stifled, specifically that of European Jews? And where were the voices of American Jews?

In the U.S., organizations like the America First Committee, with a membership that peaked at 800,000, were stridently non-interventionist. They pressured legislators not to become involved in another war. One of its most prominent members was the aviation hero, Charles Lindbergh. Established in 1940 by a Yale University law student, AFC members included fellow students future President Gerald Ford, Sargent Shriver and future Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart. The AFC merged with another more left-wing group, Keep America Out of the War Committee whose donors and contributors included many of the current-day captains of industry. One donation was sent by future President John F. Kennedy with a note saying, "What you are doing is vital." And, just in case you think that this sort of thinking, in retrospect, would be reviled, I can tell you that in 2004 conservative commentator Pat Buchanan praised America First, saying, "By keeping America out of World War II until Hitler attacked Stalin in June of 1941, Soviet Russia, not America, bore the brunt of the fighting, bleeding and dying to defeat Nazi Germany." (Pat Buchanan (October 13, 2004), HYPERLINK "http://www.theamericancause.org/patamericafirst.htm"The Resurrection of 'America First!', The American Cause, retrieved on 2008-02-03)

And what of the American Jewish community? My research entailed interviews with Jewish NYU alumni from the class of 1942, the same class in which my character, Paul Rothstein, would have graduated. Their words were riveting, revealing a detachment from the horrendous news coming from Europe concerning their Jewish brethren being systematically reduced to ghettos and resettlement to parts unknown. Adding to that sense of detachment was the American Jewish community's concerned with an effuse anti-Semitic climate. Another overriding focus was to avoid being labeled communist, or a communist sympathizer. Lindbergh’s anti-interventionist speech in Des Moines, Iowa in 1941 where he threatened Jewish Americans with reprisals for advocating action against Hitler did move the NYU Jewish students to action. They held with a massive counter demonstration outside Madison Square Garden where Lindbergh brought his souring act. But much more, certainly, could have been done.

Finally, who was the person who did not, and I venture to say, would not, authorize the bombing of the gas chambers? It was Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy, the most powerful person never elected in the U.S. government.

He was privy to the building of the atomic bomb, instrumental in the construction of the Pentagon, served as Governor General of the American sector in Germany, served every president including Jimmy Carter, and was second in command of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of JFK. As Governor General, he pardoned up to 40,000 Nazis.

Many might call him an anti-semite. I think he saw himself as a pragmatist. By August 1944, the war in Europe appeared to be weeks away from an Allied victory. But McCloy believed that the next conflict would be between the U.S. and Russia, and that they would face each other in the Middle East. If that occurred, the U.S. would need aviation gas; and, the only source of that was Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were militantly against the Jewish immigration into Palestine prior to 1939. It is my belief that McCloy didn't want any survivors of the camps flooding into Palestine to drive a wedge between the U.S. and the Saudis. And, to put it bluntly, the fewer survivors, the less risk of that happening.

This is the story that unfolded through my research. But I felt that my lack of a PhD in History would make it hard for me to move a non-fiction version of the book into publication. Besides, fiction would give me more latitude to present my findings to a broader potential readership. Putting these horrifying pieces of information into a form that made it more available to the general reading public had its benefits. I hope, however, that the power behind the story I tell in House of Ghosts holds the believability of truth -- because truth is what it's made of.

About the Author

Lawrence Kaplan is a 1979 graduate of New York University School of Dentistry, runs a dental practice in New Jersey, and lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and menagerie. House of Ghosts is his first novel.

If you'd like to find out more about House of Ghosts, you can follow this link to Lawrence Kaplan's website. The author also did a 2 part interview on Radio WDIY in Bethlehem,Pa. If you'd like to listen, here's the link : Radio Interview .

Larry Kaplan is giving away a signed copy of his book, House of Ghosts, to one lucky tour visitor! Go to: Larry's book tour page, enter your name, e-mail address, and this unique pin, 3613, for your chance to win. Entries from Chick with Books will be accepted until 12:00 Noon (PT) tomorrow. Giveaway open to US Residents ONLY! No purchase is required to enter or win. The winner (first name only) will be announced on Larry's book tour page next week. Good luck!