Rating: 
Summary: Enchanting
Review: Few faerie tales come true, so the fact that Jane Yolen winds reality and fantasy together creating a story that is hard to put down is, in itself, fascinating.The book is never slow, it reads gently and keeps you turning the pages. The details of some of the Holocaust events are disturbing and moving. Jane Yolen has taken a childhood tale and made it truly enchanting.
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Summary: An Unusual tale of the need for optimism when life is tough!
Review: this story was very good! it showed the importance of optimism in the worst case scenario. in this case it was dealing with a horrible past and the memories of it. it was the ability to share a families history in a way that could be best understood and best taken. this was a good book.
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Summary: an enchanting tale, taking place in a horifying time
Review: This was a great book it tells about the holocaust in a way that touches the heart. Giving names and faces to people in tragity situations makes the story come to life. If you were to read a doucumentary on it, you wouldn't get the same feeling as if you put the people that went through it in a love situation. With the plot being a grandmother telling her grand-daughter of a love story much like sleeping beauty. When the grandmother dies she tells her stroy listner to "find the castle" and to "find the prince". when the grand-daughter goes to find this so called castle, she finds a tale so struck with love and emotion, yet also with tragity and hate.
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Summary: Dornrösen-Briar Rose
Review: Published in France as "La Belle dormant en Bois" ("Sleeping Beauty in the woods") by Charles Perrault, the tale has become a classic. Lovely princess, handsome prince, bold rescue we all know by now. But what if the story was more than a story? This book answers that neatly. Don't bother looking for magic or Fairy godmothers though, this is reality literature not Die Grimm brdern (the Grimm brothers). This time the beauty's sleep is that of the grave and the Nazis replace the wicked queen in this version. But the rescuer, though not of royal blood does bring her back with a kiss, of sorts. You'll never think of Sleeping Beauty the same way ever again.
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Summary: A bad attempt at something that could have been so much more
Review: This piece, presented beautifully but without a strong basis and plot, outlines a journey of a polish-origin female teen in her early twenties (23yo) discovering her roots. The story does not contain enough strong-basis for any true conveyance of emotion and heartfelt sympathy for the characters as they were poorly developed and lacking in true realistic character. With the insertions of picturesque descriptions and what-seems-to-be polish authenticity, the book failed to touch on some of the true aspects of the holocaust and the tragedies that took place. I believe the author had a much more ambitious goal but lacked the emotional and psychological understanding of the true symbolism of the effects of war and the atrocities that were committed, therefore the result was deviated from it's true intensions. The book, became just another "fairy tale". If you are looking for something that will truely enlighten you and change your life, a better alternative would be "All quiet on the western front" by Erich Maria Remarque, however if you are just after "girl discovering her family past" quasi-adventure book, this might be more suitable for you. But be warned, this book fails to shock, surprise or entertain, ironically everything that a book shouldn't be!
Rating: 
Summary: A Major Disappointment...
Review: Jane Yolen's reach far exceeds her grasp in this Post Modern reconstruction of THE SLEEPING BEAUTY marchen. THE HOLOCAUST will be an archetype of COSMIC EVIL forever. Classic fairy tales (fables; cuentos; parables) are traditonal moral constructs created to teach CHILDREN right from wrong; the consequences of obedience and disobedience; and BELIEF that Evil can be reckoned with and overcome. Much ambiguity has been created...and implied...in Yolen's attempt to yoke NAZI persecution of the Jews...culminating in the Holocaust...with the "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale" and a homosexual, poltical agenda barely guised as IDENTITY QUEST. I do not believe the author succeeds in this effort where her themes produce, rather than resolve fundamental moral conflicts. I do not expect authors to evidence artistry of the ilk of C.S. Lewis or Ray Bradbury in employing fantasy, fable or legend to explore the POST-MODERN (as it is so affected) human condition. However, BRIAR ROSE evidences serious problems in technique and writng craft. In my estimate, the story itself could begin on page 137 (THE CASTLE) where the true narrator of the tale, Joseph P (soul-brother no doubt, to Kafka's Joseph K) reveals the identity of The Sleeping Beauty; the CURSE on her land and people...and the homosexual character of the narrator...Joseph Potocki...himself The latter "revelation" is neither illumating nor jolting because it has been rather ham-handely foeshadowed for over half the book. To what ultimate effect I'm not sure. But having author Jane Yolen simply declare HOME AGAIN (cf: THE RETURN...of THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES...by Joseph Campbell) does not mean the Cycle of Quest/Initiation-Identity Resolution has been successfully achieved by the hero...nor has it been convinvingly presented by the author. BRIAR ROSE's failure in craft are insistent and pose insurmmountable obstacles to theme that may have been worthily explored. I cannot recommend the book as more than an ambitious failure. To me, it was a major literary and philosophical disappointment...
Rating:
Summary: Briar Rose
Review: I thought that the book Briar Rose was great. It was very realistic. I have to admit that at the beginning of the book, I was confused. But, you just have to keep reading. Then you will understand. My favorite part of the book was when Becca found out the entire story. All about how her grandma survived Chelmno, and how she met her husband in the woods, and how she got married in the woods. I also liked hearing parts of the fairy tail every other chapter or so. It gave me an understanding of what Becca and her two sisters's heard almost every day. Of coarse the book wouldn't be complete with out a relationship forming. It was great at the end how Becca and Stan finally got together at the end of the book. It helped make the story more complete. This book is a great of example of the holocaust and how it effected people. If you think about it, Becca and her family owe their existence to something that killed millions of people, because of something so small. If it never happened, Becca's grandma would have never been gassed, then she wouldn't have been thrown in the woods, then she wouldn't have met her future husband in the woods. Nothing would have happened. It's very ironic. They wouldn't be there. This is a great book. I recommend this book to everybody.
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Summary: Awesome Book
Review: This book, Briar Rose, was an awesome book. I'm totally into Historical fiction, and this book provided my hunger for Historical fiction, along with a bit of mystery. In this tale, a young adult, Becca, wants to figure out her Gemma's (her grandmother) past. She has a few clues, to help her along the way. In the end, she does find out who her Gemma really is. I give this book 5 stars, and I recommend that you read this book. My teacher told me about it, and I'm grateful that she took the time to tell me about this book.
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Summary: A review of Jane Yolen's "Briar Rose"
Review: I felt that this was a well-plotted and well made novel that added to and enhanced the "Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose" tale. It took two seemingly unlike events and entertwined them in such a way after the experience of reading them, the two themes have become inseparable. Jane Yolen is an experienced writer of both children's and adult novels that fall under the category of fantasy, but she has also done extensive work in researching fairy tales and the "feminine mystique" behind them. Her gift of reworking the traditional forms of the fairy tale have had an amazing impact on the way that modern readers react to and understand these tales.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderfully Crafted Mix of a Tragedy and a Fairy Tale...
Review: Here tells a tale of a little girl who was the "apple of her grandmother's eye"... A sweet relationship between a girl and her grandmother that is present even when the child grows up... After the tragic death of her grandmother, Becca sets out to uncover the mystery of her "gemma's" life.The only clues to her grandmother Gitl's past life are of the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" (which she told in her own version) and a box of few precious possessions...The box has a carved rose and briar fence on its lid...this is the chilling connection between the sweet fairy tale and the horrid Holocaust of which this book revolves around...Becca travels to Poland to unravel the events that led up to her grandmother's immigration to America...Little does she know, she may discover more than she bargained for.... The book has a beautifully crafted plot...A deep description of the horrors of the Holocaust and of the Nazi terror...And the stunning connection of two very different tales...
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