Holocaust

This was a wonderful true story of a holocaust survivor, written as an autobiography. The author lived in hiding for much of the war, and successfully immigrated to New York after.

This book would be appropriate around 5th grade to be read independently, perhaps earlier if read with an adult. The vocabulary is simple, and is accessible for many levels of readers. This would be a good pre-cursor to reading Anne Frank, because it is shorter and has many photos. ( )

Ruth Gruener is a holocaust survivor and this book is an auto-biography (historical non-fiction) about herself. She describes in child language the story of her childhood from age 7 to about 16. She explains the hardships of hiding in a box for weeks at a time and then learning to walk again when she got out. Ruth ended up traveling to America to live after WWII and describes the difficult transition.
The character development of Ruth grew more and more and the book continued. At first the reader didn't know much about Ruth and her famiy and didn't feel emotionally attached when they lost their house and all their belongings. As the book continues Ruth's sincere, genuine personality is expressed and as a reader gets harder to watch her suffer pain. Ruth ends up surviving and has a happy ending to her life.
Media- none
Use- Read Aloud during WWII unit, Book Group for 5th graders, Auto-biography study ( )