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Just Such a Book
May. 7th, 2014 12:23 pmIt's been years, maybe decades, since I last read a book so compelling that I had difficulty putting it down. This morning, I finished reading just such a book, The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust, by Edith Hahn Beers.
Over the past couple of years, my grandson and I have gravitated toward history and biography in the collaborative outside reading we've done for his elementary school classes. The decision to focus on non-fiction was my grandson's and it was made near the end of 2nd grade, well before the edict that this reading strategy was "better for the children" was handed down by the almighty advocates of the so-called "common core."
Since that time, unfortunately, it's been our finding that so much of what is available for kids in this age group (he's now in the 5th grade but tests at a 10th grade reading level) is either nonsensical tripe like "Junie B. Jones" or "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" or, if it ventures into the realm of real-world experience, it's often so riddled with factual and other errors as to be more annoying than informative, more cautionary than exemplary.
(Even more exasperating is the fact that one "young adult" book that I read on my own recently, for the purpose of determining its suitability for our shared reading, actually displayed one of those silver book award seals on its cover. And I found it to be poorly-conceived and poorly-executed as well as generally inappropriate.)
Having done a substantial amount of writing, editing, and critiquing of my own, I know that this is where I should cite at least a few examples of these alleged shortcomings. However, let's just say that the foregoing is intended more as a general observation than as the lead-in to any sort of definitive essay.
The point is that I've finally found something that's readable, interesting, and informative, as well as having an inherent value and purpose beyond the moment when we've closed the cover on its final page.
(Just so you don't think I'm going easy on this one, because of a personal empathy for its theme, there's a sort of ironic typo in the Kindle edition which turns "petty thievery," in a Nazi concentration camp, into "pretty thievery." And if you go looking for it and it's not there, it's because I've already noted it for the online version's editors.)
With respect to its suitability for our shared reading, it may or may not, at this precise moment, be a good fit. On one hand, my grandson and I have done considerable reading around the people and events of WWII and this book is an amazingly deft handling of one of the most disturbing aspects of that era. It humanizes the inhuman through the filter of its remarkable first-person narrator, Edith H. Beers.
On the other hand, I'd be reading this with an eleven year old boy whose tenth grade reading level does not necessarily equip him to deal with the behavioral errata of adults under stress. Gonna have to think about that one although, again, the warm humanity of Edith Beers might get us through that as well.
What I have decided is that, the first time my book budget allows, I'm going to pull this one out of the digital realm and place it in the barrister's bookcase handed down to me from my father's maternal grandmother. Because The Nazi Officer's Wife is truly one that transcends time with a story for all generations.
That way, it'll also be there for my grandson when he's ready...
LPK
LiveJournal
5.7.2014 (a)
Over the past couple of years, my grandson and I have gravitated toward history and biography in the collaborative outside reading we've done for his elementary school classes. The decision to focus on non-fiction was my grandson's and it was made near the end of 2nd grade, well before the edict that this reading strategy was "better for the children" was handed down by the almighty advocates of the so-called "common core."
Since that time, unfortunately, it's been our finding that so much of what is available for kids in this age group (he's now in the 5th grade but tests at a 10th grade reading level) is either nonsensical tripe like "Junie B. Jones" or "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" or, if it ventures into the realm of real-world experience, it's often so riddled with factual and other errors as to be more annoying than informative, more cautionary than exemplary.
(Even more exasperating is the fact that one "young adult" book that I read on my own recently, for the purpose of determining its suitability for our shared reading, actually displayed one of those silver book award seals on its cover. And I found it to be poorly-conceived and poorly-executed as well as generally inappropriate.)
Having done a substantial amount of writing, editing, and critiquing of my own, I know that this is where I should cite at least a few examples of these alleged shortcomings. However, let's just say that the foregoing is intended more as a general observation than as the lead-in to any sort of definitive essay.
The point is that I've finally found something that's readable, interesting, and informative, as well as having an inherent value and purpose beyond the moment when we've closed the cover on its final page.
(Just so you don't think I'm going easy on this one, because of a personal empathy for its theme, there's a sort of ironic typo in the Kindle edition which turns "petty thievery," in a Nazi concentration camp, into "pretty thievery." And if you go looking for it and it's not there, it's because I've already noted it for the online version's editors.)
With respect to its suitability for our shared reading, it may or may not, at this precise moment, be a good fit. On one hand, my grandson and I have done considerable reading around the people and events of WWII and this book is an amazingly deft handling of one of the most disturbing aspects of that era. It humanizes the inhuman through the filter of its remarkable first-person narrator, Edith H. Beers.
On the other hand, I'd be reading this with an eleven year old boy whose tenth grade reading level does not necessarily equip him to deal with the behavioral errata of adults under stress. Gonna have to think about that one although, again, the warm humanity of Edith Beers might get us through that as well.
What I have decided is that, the first time my book budget allows, I'm going to pull this one out of the digital realm and place it in the barrister's bookcase handed down to me from my father's maternal grandmother. Because The Nazi Officer's Wife is truly one that transcends time with a story for all generations.
That way, it'll also be there for my grandson when he's ready...
LPK
LiveJournal
5.7.2014 (a)
