Rachel DeWoskinRecensioni

A moving account of a young Polish girl's coming of age as a Jewish refugee in Shanghai during WWII. Reminds me of Ruta Sepetys' Between Shades of Gray.

The author has lived in Shanghai, which gives her descriptions of places authenticity. In this story, the main character of Lillia is the daughter of circus performers who wants to become one herself. Her family plans to flee to Shanghai, losing their mother in a raid. They don't know where she is, but it is too dangerous to stay, and father and daughters, Lillia and Naomi, have to leave and hope she finds them.

In Shanghai, they live in a Jewish settlement called the Heime, which resembles the slums in Germany where other Jews were forced to live. Under conditions of extreme privation, Lillia manages to attend a school for Jewish refugees, where she befriends a luckier girl, Rebecca, who lives in an expatriot compound across the river, a refugee named Biatta, and a Chinese boy named Wei, who is the school's janitor.

At first I thought it would make a good read for younger teens, but there are some circumstances later in the book that would be better for a more mature teen.

Prior to the years preceding World War II, Shanghai, a thriving port city, already was home to an immigrant population, including Jews, many of whom had fled to Shanghai following the 1917 Russian Revolution.

The Holocaust Museum Encyclopedia reports that during the early 1930s, Nazi policy encouraged Jewish emigration from Germany (before they cut off emigration so they could kill Jews instead). Shanghai was one of the few places willing to take Jews, and until August 1939 did not even require visas to enter.

In this novel that won the 2019 National Jewish Book Award for Young Adult Literature and the 2020 Sydney Taylor Award for Young Adults, Lillia Kaczka, the narrator, is 15 and living in Warsaw, Germany with her parents, who are trapeze artists in a circus, and baby sister Naomi. As violence against Jews accelerates, Bercik, the father, makes arrangements for them to travel to Shanghai. At the time they had to leave, however, Lillia’s mother, Alenka, was missing. They had no choice but to go without her, leaving information about where they would be if she could ever get there.

The family experienced culture shock in Shanghai, in addition to being without money, scarce jobs, and constantly hungry. [Per the Holocaust Museum, Shanghai’s refugee population suddenly jumped from about 1,500 at the end of 1938 to nearly 17,000 one year later. The local Jews were overwhelmed and hard pressed to find the resources to help needy families.]

Lillia and her family moved into one of the shelters established for the impoverished Jewish refugees. The one the Kaczkas were in was a converted former barracks and slept from six to 150 to a room. They ate mostly at soup kitchens, but Lillia sometimes stole to supplement their food allotment.

Lillia tried to take care of Naomi while her father looked for work everyday, and always they worried about Alenka. At a free school for refugees, Lillia met and forged a bond with Wei, a Chinese worker at the school. She stopped attending school though when her father and sister got sick, and she had to find more money to take care of them. She took the route of impoverished and desperate women throughout time, making her way to a “gentlemen’s club,” where at first, she was only required to sit with men and to dance. She had studied performance her whole life because of her parents, and was able to win over the audience with her acrobatics. But for the heartless “madam,” this was not enough.

Meanwhile, as if they didn’t have enough to deal with, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor; America entered the war; and the Japanese arrived in force in Shanghai to set up a regime reminiscent of the Nazis in Europe. What will happen to them and where will they end up if the war ever ends?

Discussion: This novel is interesting in that it (a) chronicles a little-known aspect of the Holocaust and its victims, and (b) does it from the perspective of a young girl, who doesn’t know much about world events except what she overhears in snatches of conversations. Her world is still very much about making friends, meeting boys, and helping to take care of her family. When that latter concern propels her into a grown-up world where she must make moral compromises, she has no one and nothing to guide her, except the demands of her heart.

Evaluation: This is a very affecting and memorable story but readers will have to fill in a number of blanks that are either unknown by Lillia, or that she is reluctant to talk about, even to herself.

When young Emma Silver was blinded by fireworks, her world turns upside down. I very much liked the way in which the author described Emma's struggle to live in a sightless world. The images of her large family, and loving parents were written nicely. However, as the book progressed, it spun into nowhere.

I can't recommend this one.

When Emma Sasha Silver loses her eyesight in a nightmare accident, she must relearn everything from walking across the street to recognizing her own sisters to imagining colors. One of seven children, Emma used to be the invisible kid, but now it seems everyone is watching her. And just as she’s about to start high school and try to recover her friendships and former life, one of her classmates is found dead in an apparent suicide. Fifteen and blind, Emma has to untangle what happened and why—in order to see for herself what makes life worth living.

RGG: Fascinating history of Jewish refugees in Shanghai during WWII. The story perhaps could have been more concise and/or more could have happened. Reading Interest: 13-YA.

SOMEDAY WE WILL FLY by Rachel DeWoskin

Performers in the Warsaw Circus must flee for their lives from the Nazis. As they flee to Shanghai, Lillia’s mother is lost. She and father left with no Choice, continue to Shanghai where Jews are being offered safety, but not an easy life. As the Japanese draw ever nearer, life becomes more tenuous and scary.
Well written and researched, this YA novel is also a wonderful read for adults. The Jewish experience in war time China has been little known. This book attempts to rectify that omission and succeeds. Lillia, her father and those she comes in contact with are fully developed characters. The plot is engrossing.
5 of 5 stars

Lillia, fifteen, flees Warsaw with her father and baby sister in 1940 to try to make a new start in Shanghai, China, but the conflict grows more intense as America and Japan become involved.

A teenage girl with dwarfism begins attending a performing arts high school and is sexually assaulted by several male students. Good for high school.

Dewoskin was just out of college in the early nineties and determined to have an interesting life. Since her Michigan family had spent a lot of time traveling in China when she was a child, she decided to take a PR job with an American company in Beijing. She planned to stay until something else came along, but instead, she was asked to audition for a part in a nighttime soap opera called Foreign Babes in Beijing a "Dallas" type show in which she played a seductive American who lures a Chinese man away from his family, exposing him to the "open-minded" ways of the Western world. The show made Dewoskin famous in China, though the bad pay kept her from leaving her regular job, and the character she played caused controversy in Western countries.
She spent many years in China, made Chinese and ex-pat friends, fell in love, argued about cultural differences and tried to figure out how to fit in with a city she really loved. The author writes about the perception of the Chinese to Western people and culture, their perception of Americans and culture, and her perception of the Chinese ways. She discusses the ways the average person lives and the people she befriends who live outside the norm. Really interesting to me and has lots of information that is surprising, yet still would be good for the casual travel reader.½

At 16 years old Judy Loden is a precocious young girl; witty, smart, and a voice that could knock you over. She is also 3 ft 9 in tall and has convinced her parents to let her attend the the prestigious Ann Arbor Darcy Arts Academy. Life isn't exactly easy when you're a little person, but Judy handles it with aplomb, making new friends and falling for the best looking guy at school. Yet she is telling us her story from a seedy hotel room where she is hiding out, from her family, her friends, the media, and the sadly not all too uncommon event that has left her shattered, unsure if she will ever be able to recover.

I've read numerous reviews that compare Judy to both the iconic Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye fame and the angst ridden Lee Fiora of Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep. I find both comparisons unfair. Judy is a unique character all her own, sharing only one thing in common with either novel, that it is a incredibly memorable coming of age tale, that is both modern and timeless. Judy was a very believable character; her internal thought processes and constant fears of judgment by her peers striking a chord that should remind any adult reading this book of what it felt like when they too were 16. While her stature could have come across as gimicky, it was handled quite well, without overshadowing the actual story. The rest of the characters were equally well written, making for an enjoyable read (or in my case listen). None of the background characters came across as cardboard cutouts resembling teenagers, despite the fact that they were made up of the ubiquitous in-crowd, geeks, and outcasts that you'll find in any high school. The adults were every bit as individual. The author's ability to give each character a unique voice, made this novel stand out from the crowd of coming-of-age novels that clog the shelves and I highly recommend this novel, both to teenagers and adults.

DeWoskin is a bit too much of the distant and amused observer for me, as compared to the warmth and empathy of the China memoirs of authors like Peter Hessler.

I liked the way that Emma described her sightless world - all the colors she saw as she listened to everything around her. I enjoyed watching her progression from fearing almost everything, to daring herself to do hard things and discovering that she could do them and they didn't destroy her. This story made me think seriously about how losing my sight would change my life and what it would mean to build a new life. Lots of interesting things to think about with the novel, including the nature of friendships, and what makes one give up and another one keep going.

Emma Silvers loses her eyesight in a tragic accident and then the book takes us through her year at Briarley where she learns to deal with her blindness and then her year back at her high school dealing with her new reality as a blind teenager. It does a really good job of describing the smells and sounds she experiences and making the reader realize how critical those senses now are for her. A student her age, Claire, commits suicide and the subplot is how she and her friends try to make sense of her tragic death.½

I'm trying to keep an open mind, but am apprehensively starting this. It's one of my Odyssey First Edition books, which I am part of [partly] to expose myself to books that I wouldn't usually pick up. This is definitely a book I wouldn't normally read - there is nothing about the description that interests me and after the first disc, I'm already tired of the "anyway"'s and the "like"'s. It's stereotypical teenage narration and I've already rolled my eyes more than once. I don't like YA like this. To be honest, I'm suprised this was chosen by the Odyssey. But open mind, open mind...

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Rachel DeWoskin’s Blind was a book I was curious about, but I wasn’t so sure it would be my sort of book. The blurb somehow made it sound like it would be a murder mystery, but, honestly, that’s really misleading. Blind really is not that. If you’re here for that, then you’re going to be disappointed. Actually, Blind is a rather strange book, more of a character study than anything. It’s going to be a struggle for a lot of readers, but highly pleasing for a select group. Blind is an in-depth study of what life is like for a newly blind teenager.

There’s not much plot in Blind. The only real conflict is Emma’s inner conflict. The arc is her coming to terms with her blindness and learning to accept her new self. The suicide is important to her, but it’s not action or drama really. The most dramatic bit is some friendship trouble. Otherwise, this book is very realistic on the ins and outs of her days. We call the genre realistic fiction, but usually it’s a fictional realistic. It’s all believable, but it’s the most exciting week in someone’s life or their life is just a bit more exciting than a person’s usually is or the boring bits are skipped. Blind is realistic in the minutiae. It’s mostly the boring bits, which is cool, but also slow-going and definitely going to be a hindrance to some readers.

Blind is one of those cases where I probably would have DNFed the book in print, but I enjoyed the audio. Though Annalie Gernert didn’t read with all that much emotion, her narration really fit with Emma, who is very quiet and thoughtful. Even when she gets angry, she tends to do it quietly. She’s not generally very spontaneous. This is actually a side effect of her blindness, because she’s trying really hard not to stand out. Thus, the measured reading really seemed like it WAS Emma and that brought her alive enough for me to care about the tiny details of her daily life.

Plus, it’s really fascinating to learn so many details about what it’s like to be blind. Blind definitely taught me things I hadn’t known before, especially about the differences between being born blind and becoming blind later in life. There’s a lot about how Emma learns to function so well. This is a great book for awareness of other ways of experiencing the world.

The writing was really unique. Emma perceives the world in a way that comes across almost as synesthesia. She hears sounds and imagines them as colors. Textures too. She can sometimes hear what color something is, though she’s not always right about that. I’m not sure if this is a byproduct of having once had sight or an Emma thing. It makes the narration really unique though.

The book’s main drawback, as I said, is how slow it is. You’ve got to be there for a long emotional journey. In the end, Emma comes to a really healthy place. She learns to accept her new self and gains more self-confidence than she even had before the accident that took her sight. She and her best friend come through their troubles still friends. Emma learns that she’s lovable and even makes moves to get herself a boy (or two). She bonds with her least favorite sibling in a way that’s really heart-warming. Her character arc is ultimately very worth it, if you can manage to slog through the details.

Blind is most definitely worth checking out if you’re a reader who enjoys in-depth character studies or want to learn more about blindness. If you’re a plot-oriented reader, I’d advise you to steer clear.

I wanted to read Blind because I am drawn to books dealing with disability or mental illness. I wanted to get inside Emma's head and find out her story.

It is pretty agonizing for her, and I can only imagine the huge change that it would make on your life. She is angry, questioning what makes life worth living and exploring those things. The details seem so realistic... How she is so overwhelmed when she first goes back to school, all of the noise, not knowing who is talking to her, the crowds and everything being so much harder for her academically. She can't read the board, or pay attention as well because noise at times is like an assault to her.

She keeps opening her eyes and being surprised when she is still in the dark. It just endears her to me. After her accident, she was screaming and refusing to do anything and I think that is so realistic. I could see that being my reaction. But it starts to change and she gets the curiosity and drive to try to get back into the game of life when she gets a K9 buddy, a dog named Spark. He loves her just the same and it is a constant for her. He isn't a seeing guide dog persay, but he did have training.

I adored her best friend and sister Leah. They were by her side whether she wanted it or not. Logan (female best friend) tries to keep her up to date with what is going on and helps her from class to class. She wouldn't take no for an answer in her darker days and kept coming back to visit her. And speaking of her family, there are 7 kids. It is pretty unique to get to read about a family like that and I think it was a good element. From the younger siblings we get to see the tender moments and also the questions that no one else will ask, and from the older we see the support. Emma's parents are polar opposites but they make it work and they are present in kids lives even when they sometimes agree to disagree how to handle some of the issues that arise.

And the element of the teen missing and then found? It was an okay element for me, but I wasn't overly crazy about it. I think it did help to keep the town and other teens from school from focusing too much on Emma, and it gave her another tragedy to come alongside and realize that while being blind sucks, at least she is alive. It is also an avenue for the teens to get together, get to know one another better as well as finding their safe place to talk about tragedy.

The romance is pretty light in this one, but I was okay with it. During most of her dark time, I think that it would have been unrealistic. But I will say that the romance that was there wasn't quite the direction that I expected it to go, but I was still pleased with it, and think that it fit the tone of the book.

I really enjoyed watching Emma grow, the amazing family that she has, and the support from Logan (even though their friendship was tested, and that it evolved) and her other friends that she learned to lean on and begin to let in bit after bit. Emma was well on her way to figuring out how to live as a person who has lost her sight, as well as into a beautiful and strong person.

The ending was nice, and gave me completion. Though I wouldn't mind more time with these characters, and I was sad for the time to end, I like how it wrapped up and where it left me in Emma's story.

Bottom Line: Journey of a girl finding her way in a world without sight. Also firmly a story of family and friendship.

Emma Sasha Silver is fourteen when she is blinded by a backfiring fireworks at a town BlindFourth of July celebration. For the next six months she remains a lump on the gold couch in her living room, doing little to learn how to live in her dark world. It is then that her parents (doctor father, artist mother) decide to send her to the Briarly Academy for the Blind. It is there that she learns to cope with many of the physical day to day tasks of living. However, it did little to enable Emma to cope with the psychological trauma of blindness after being able to see for fourteen years.

A year after “the accident”, Emma is now mainstreamed into high school. The excitement of this remarkable achievement is overshadowed by the drowning death of Claire, a friend and classmate. Adults and grief counselors, rather than addressing the death head on (suicide? accident?) offer only platitudes and half truths.

But Emma wants to know more…why? What happened? What caused Claire’s death? How can kids help each other avoid getting to the point of suicide? She organizes a group of kids to meet and talk. Will it help? You’ll find out.

There’s a lot to like in Blind by Rachel DeWoskin. Firstly, it’s the first teen book that I know about that deals with blindness and it handles it very well. The range of emotions. The techniques for getting around (organizing clothing with Braille labels, a place for everything and everything in its place). Emma has six siblings from older sisters Leah and Sarah to Babiest Baby Lily. Of course, Emma’s first thoughts are me, me, me. Why me? How can I live? Who will love me? But there comes a time when Emma realizes that her entire family has been affected by her blindness and she begins to see outward.

At first I thought the death of Claire was an obstacle in reading the book. There was a significant story just in dealing with the blindness and its impact on everyone. But later I realized that the contrast between what Emma went through and the “unknown” that Claire went through is an important part of the story. What makes a survivor? Why can one person live and thrive after becoming blind while another potentially ended her life on purpose without enduring anything nearly as catastrophic.

The characters in Blind are great. They run the gamut from best friend Logan who helps Emma manage getting around to some cynical classmates to Emma’s sisters, some understanding, some gruff. It’s interesting to note that the younger ones sometimes have the most honest perspective…but we all know that…out of the mouths of babes.

So, while I think Blind is a wonderful book and definitely worth reading, I do have one small criticism. A little bit better editing and deletion of about 50 pages would have made it a tighter, better book. But, hey, if that’s the only criticism, that’s not bad. Blind is a welcome addition to YA literature. It opened my eyes. (Please forgive me for that one. I just couldn’t help it.)½

The rating is more like a 2.5. There were a little more things that I didn't like about the book compared to what I did like about it. I wanted to absolutely love it, but I just couldn't. There were times where I hated the character and other times I did feel something for her. The half a dozen or more F bombs annoyed me, so I would recommend this book to grades 9 and up, if you have no issues with language as some people do. The story itself was well-written and easy to read. You’ll hardly notice the length of the book once you get into reading it.½

I found this an interesting read, although not really a 'good book'. Certainly a different topic - a little person at a performing arts school has something happen to her that drives her to run away from home. It wasn't all that difficult to figure out what the horrible thing was going to be by the time it happened (or at least guess the gist of it), but the character was interesting. However, I'm not sure it's very realistic. Judy has pretty high self-esteem - she knows she's a talented singer, deserves the accolades she gets at school and that she's quite pretty. On the other hand, when it comes to parties and boys, she just can't believe that any of them would be interested, especially the one she likes.

But let's be honest, this book is primarily about parties, drinking, and sex. Secondarily, it's about how boys see things (like sex) vs. how girls do and also friendship and families.

I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but thinking back, it wasn't really a book I would recommend readily to others. Teens might find it more interesting than most adults.

Told in the first person, the protagonist, a 17 year old little person, weaves a stream of consciousness story that is entertaining, funny, heartbreaking, and honest about a personally traumatic event.

Crossover title, teen/adult. Very angry-sounding narrator (a dwarf in her junior year of high school), whose life is ruined by a sex scandal. A little predictable in places, but engaging, with a main character you really root for even when she's making bad decisions.

First of all, it looks like the cover has been revised since the first printing, which is great because the cover is totally misleading. Big Girl Small has as its main character a little person, a dwarf, and the cover shows a full-size person holding on to a bunch of balloons.

What is unique about the character of Judy Lohden is that she is portrayed as a typical teenager with artistic gifts who just happens to also be a dwarf. Reading the book, you forget she is a dwarf, because the trials and traumas of her life seem really pretty typical. I like that Judy is portrayed as a strong young girl, capable of making her way in the world of full-size teenagers, who views herself without self-pity. Her misunderstanding of what constitutes a romantic relationship is probably pretty typical of teens. Even when she is betrayed and victimized by a boy she is "in-love" with, she doesn't see herself as someone without any culpability.

I think this is a great book for teen girls. It's honest and realistic and the dialogue is true.

ALEX award winner. Judy is a well-adjusted and confident little person. She's in high school, has good friends, and has a beautiful singing voice. When one of the cutest guys in school begins paying attention to her, Judy falls head over heels and engaging in behavior that is typical for a "star-struck" girl her age. When things go awry and her "boyfriend' does something unspeakable Judy takes off and tries to sort through her thoughts and feelings. This is a well-written and engaging read. Judy does not allow herself to be victimized by her "handicap" and is a powerful character. Some of the circumstances seem contrived (would she really fall that easily for her boyfriend's questionable behavior?) and the ending seems a little unrealistic, but overall it's a great read.