Waiting for Anya

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent novel
Review: I first read this book when I was twelve, and I've picked it up nearly every year since then. It has unfortunately been deemed an "adventure" story, but it is not. Nor is it a Holocaust story. It is a novel that goes deep into the human condition and touches on aspects of friendship, death, love, growing up, and human decency. It is filled with characters who are real, characters who overlook their time and place, and ultimately sacrifice themselves for what they believe in. The book is sad but not morbid; poignant but not sentimental. I have gone on to read so many other books, but I have always come back to this one with a love and respect I have for few other books--children's or otherwise.

Rating:
Summary: This book made you think long after it was read.
Review: The book Waiting For Anya was very well written. It is a story about a boy named Jo who is a shepard in France during World War II. He finds out that an old widow who lives in his town (The "Black Widow") has, along with her son-in-law been hiding Jews from the Germans. The story gets complicated as twenty-two German soldiers move into Jo's village. Jo is swept up in the Jew's crisis and is determinded to help them escape. The story further unravels as Jo's father (a POW) comes home. Time is running out for the Jewish children. Jo's bravery, and the heartbreaking conclusion make this a wonderful book for people of all ages to read.

Rating:
Summary: What Cost--Self-preservation?
Review: Twelve-year-old Jo is a shepherd boy in a French mountain village near the Spanish border; but his pastoral life is abruptly changed when Nazi soldiers are garrisoned in his peaceful hamlet. Having worked to help the family during the four years that his father has been a POW, the youth meets a red-bearded stranger in the hills--precipitating excitement, new purpose and great dangers. For Benjamin is hiding with his mother-in-law (a widow with the reputation of a witch), while waiting for his daughter to sneak back home through occupied France. Jo is stunned to discover that the adult pair are part of an underground railroad, ferrying Jewish children through the country across to Spain. How can he not help this noble cause, yet how can he keep his humanitiarian activities a secret from Maman and Grandpere?

The story reads easily with plenty of dialogue, action and increasing tension which culminates in the inevitable confrontation with the enemy. There is a fine line between Collaboration and making the best of a hateful situation; no one can be blamed for putting a priority on self-preservation. The author provides gentle thematic substrata to the obvious plot; mutual atempts for international cooperation
and even sympathetic understanding. People are human, after all, with similar values and upbringing, despite the language barrier. Unfortunately, serious events keep reminding friendly Jo that these soldiers are still the Eneny. This is a good juvenile thriller about French resistance and the Jewish experience. (Other books with this theme of Resistance to the Nazi invasion: The Little Riders--Holland, Snow Treaure--Norway, and Twenty Plus Ten (also France.)

Rating:
Summary: What Cost--Self-preservation?
Review: Twelve-year-old Jo is a shepherd boy in a French mountain village near the Spanish border; but his pastoral life is abruptly changed when Nazi soldiers are garrisoned in his peaceful hamlet. Having worked to help the family during the four years that his father has been a POW, the youth meets a red-bearded stranger in the hills--precipitating excitement, new purpose and great dangers. For Benjamin is hiding with his mother-in-law (a widow with the reputation of a witch), while waiting for his daughter to sneak back home through occupied France. Jo is stunned to discover that the adult pair are part of an underground railroad, ferrying Jewish children through the country across to Spain. How can he not help this noble cause, yet how can he keep his humanitiarian activities a secret from Maman and Grandpere?

The story reads easily with plenty of dialogue, action and increasing tension which culminates in the inevitable confrontation with the enemy. There is a fine line between Collaboration and making the best of a hateful situation; no one can be blamed for putting a priority on self-preservation. The author provides gentle thematic substrata to the obvious plot; mutual atempts for international cooperation
and even sympathetic understanding. People are human, after all, with similar values and upbringing, despite the language barrier. Unfortunately, serious events keep reminding friendly Jo that these soldiers are still the Eneny. This is a good juvenile thriller about French resistance and the Jewish experience. (Other books with this theme of Resistance to the Nazi invasion: The Little Riders--Holland, Snow Treaure--Norway, and Twenty Plus Ten (also France.)

Rating:
Summary: What a sophorific (meaning causing sleep) book!
Review: waiting for anya is very realistic. Set in war time. saving jewish children. a bit of humor in it too. if, your one of those who wanders what it's like to live in war. u should read this.