North to Freedom

Rating:
Summary: A Very Exciting Book
Review: ...I did not like it all!...the book is so predictable! By the 3rd to last chapter, I already knew what was going to happen. I do not reccommend this book unless you like books about history.

Rating:
Summary: North to Freedom
Review: David, a 12 year old, raised in a prison camp, is allowed to escape with instructions to go north to freedom. From the drab, depressing surroundings of the prison camp to the wide world of freedoms, colors, smells, scenery, being clean, and being honest, David cautiously learns about the world around him. This book is a learning adventure at becoming true to one's self. At an early age, this book had a profound effect on my life, David made me stop and appreciate the little things that are such common conveniences in life. At one point in the book, a boy beats up David, but David doesn't fight back. Angrily, the boy asked why he didn't fight back and David said, "Because if I hit you back, I'd be no better than you are. I'd be just as rotten and worthless, and I'd have no right to be free!" It's a lesson all of us can incorporate in our lives. This is always the first book I recommend to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Trust
Review: Do you know what it is like to be hunted? Or to feel the palpable hate from men who destroy everything except what is inside of you? David, from his experience in the concentration camp, simply can not trust anyone. He has to be wary because that is the only way to survive. Parts of him are so deadened inside that when he sees the beautifull it is so much more intense. This book provides a usefull insight into the experience of many that will evoke your compassion and give you some understanding of why some people who are hurt are so reluctant to ever get close again or to seek or even recognize help around them. And through all of this, David is a moral person. He knows why evil must be resisted. Excelent!

Rating:
Summary: Trust
Review: Do you know what it is like to be hunted? Or to feel the palpable hate from men who destroy everything except what is inside of you? David, from his experience in the concentration camp, simply can not trust anyone. He has to be wary because that is the only way to survive. Parts of him are so deadened inside that when he sees the beautifull it is so much more intense. This book provides a usefull insight into the experience of many that will evoke your compassion and give you some understanding of why some people who are hurt are so reluctant to ever get close again or to seek or even recognize help around them. And through all of this, David is a moral person. He knows why evil must be resisted. Excelent!

Rating:
Summary: one of my favorites
Review: I have a copy of this book from the UK that is called I Am David. It starts with a man telling David, "You must get away tonight. Stay awake so that you're ready just before the guard is changed. When you see me strike a match, the current will be cut off and you can climb over -- you'll have half a minute, no more." This starts David's journey not just to freedom and home, but also to learning how to live as a regular kid after only living in a concentration camp. It's a serious book but one that should be read.

Rating:
Summary: I love this book!
Review: This book nails the formula for exciting fiction: change throughconflict. And there's plenty of conflict. Young David is trying tomake his way north to freedom after escaping from a concentrationcamp. He must do this alone and at the risk of his life. Recapture,starvation, loneliness, and a 1000-mile expanse of war-torn Europe arethe obstacles in his way.

We trek with David, feeling his pain,fear, sorrow, and disillusionment. But there, too, on the journey welearn about life, love, courage, and the value of freedom astwelve-year-old David comes of age well before his time, and Europecomes of age a little too late.

This book is an excellent choice forspoiled, middle class American children who've been spoon-fed freedomtheir whole life and think that the only freedom worth fighting for isan extra hour of video games before bed. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes.

Rating:
Summary: Very good book!!!!
Review: This was a very good book. it was about a boy escaping from a concentration camp in Greece and WALKING to Denmark! It has very discriptive writing. David (the boy) thinks very differently than we do, he is very cautious, and scared or doesn't know how to do the things we do in our normal life. I loved this book and I hope you do to.

Rating:
Summary: David's Journey North To Freedom
Review: Though I have read this book countless times through the years, with each reading I discover more of the story and more of myself. I have yet to finish this book and not be in tears, for David, and for the birth, loss, and rebirth of hope itself. I recommend this book to readers of all ages, but particularly those who have struggled through sorrow and rediscovered faith.

Rating:
Summary: Lousy title, wonderful book
Review: Why oh why do U.S. publishers insist on retitling classic European books? As "I Am David" this book successfully explores far more profound questions than freedom. David's journey is a process of self discovery and a self-imposed restructuring of a broken human spirit. Though told in the third person, the narrative invites us into David's young mind and allows us to see the wonder of objects and concepts that we all take for granted but which are new to the young escapee. Music, play, the taste of an orange, the feeling of being clean, language, colour! David's voyage of discovery is a bitter sweet mixture and we learn the awful truth about his past during his trek across Europe at the same pace as he does himself.

I have read this book with classes of children from fourth to seventh grade, as well as with adults. It is a book for all seasons, and I can still turn the pages with pleasure and wonder.

The wonder of realising what it is to say "I Am David" is what the book is all about! "North to Freedom" is a lousy title - meaningless in fact, David's first steps to freedom take him south! But this should not dissuade anyone from reading Anne Holm's book. The greatest children's story to come out of Denmark since Hans Christian Andersen.