Take a photo of a barcode or cover
savage_book_review 's review for:
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
by Judith Kerr
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I picked this up from my Kindle while I was out and about doing other things, just to fill the time. Somehow, despite my loving books such as 'The Diary of Anne Frank' since childhood, I've never read this one until now.
This is a beautifully written, semi-autobiographical account of the author's flight from Germany as the Nazi Party rose to power in the early 1930s. Its simple prose makes this a wonderful book for children to read alone or have read to them, but it's equally layered and complex enough to appeal to an older audience too.
Told from the young Anna's perspective, it has quite a similar feel to 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' - you can recognise the tension and deteriorating circumstances and the danger of being a Jew in the wrong place at that time, but through the innocence of a child's eyes. It's the big wide world intruding on their small reality and their taking it in their stride; children who refuse to play with her, the silenced outburst as they cross the border, and of course her 'loss' of pink rabbit. Anna's insistence that she won't be a famous writer because she hasn't had a 'difficult childhood' and her acceptance and even enjoyment, of being considered a refugee tugs at the heartstrings, and really hits home when you consider that this does reflect the author's actual experience.
I don't know where I got the idea from, but I would have always sworn that the story of pink rabbit was that he was left on a train and that the premise was pink rabbit finding its way back to Anna as she moves through war torn Europe to escape the threat. This isn't the case, so I was actually a bit thrown to start with. I know it's a bit silly, but I was definitely expecting something more along the lines of an adventure story! But actually, the reality is better.
I was a little surprised at the suddenness of the ending, but I had never realised this was the first part of a trilogy and so I'm definitely going to add the next two to my TBR list. It almost seems a shame that the whole story wasn't told in one chunkier novel, but I'll take what I can!
This is a beautifully written, semi-autobiographical account of the author's flight from Germany as the Nazi Party rose to power in the early 1930s. Its simple prose makes this a wonderful book for children to read alone or have read to them, but it's equally layered and complex enough to appeal to an older audience too.
Told from the young Anna's perspective, it has quite a similar feel to 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' - you can recognise the tension and deteriorating circumstances and the danger of being a Jew in the wrong place at that time, but through the innocence of a child's eyes. It's the big wide world intruding on their small reality and their taking it in their stride; children who refuse to play with her, the silenced outburst as they cross the border, and of course her 'loss' of pink rabbit. Anna's insistence that she won't be a famous writer because she hasn't had a 'difficult childhood' and her acceptance and even enjoyment, of being considered a refugee tugs at the heartstrings, and really hits home when you consider that this does reflect the author's actual experience.
I don't know where I got the idea from, but I would have always sworn that the story of pink rabbit was that he was left on a train and that the premise was pink rabbit finding its way back to Anna as she moves through war torn Europe to escape the threat. This isn't the case, so I was actually a bit thrown to start with. I know it's a bit silly, but I was definitely expecting something more along the lines of an adventure story! But actually, the reality is better.
I was a little surprised at the suddenness of the ending, but I had never realised this was the first part of a trilogy and so I'm definitely going to add the next two to my TBR list. It almost seems a shame that the whole story wasn't told in one chunkier novel, but I'll take what I can!