Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story

Rating:
Summary: Moving story from a child's point of view
Review: "Four Perfect Pebbles" by Lila Perl and Marion Blumenthal Lazan, tells the story of young Marion's life in Hoya Germany during the rise of the Nazis. The story goes from Holland to Bergan-Belsen where the Blumenthal family ends up. And then after the war in the United States.
While this is book for the younger reader, this is a book that can be enjoyed by anyone at any age. Truly this book should not be missed.

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Summary: a good easy book about a jewish girl during the holocaust.
Review: A good book about a girl who tries to find four perfect pebblesbecause if she does, she tinks her family will survive th holocaust. atouching story about one girl's fight for survival during one of the hardest times in history.

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Summary: A chilling look at the Holocaust
Review: A great book, recommended for 6th grade and up. Enjoyed it very much

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Summary: Extremely evocative and moving
Review: As a junior high reading teacher and being extremely interested in survivors of the Holocaust, I was thrilled to read this book. Students will readily relate to this book. The author was 5 year younger than Anne Frank, her family moved to Amsterdam from Germany when she was a small child, she went to Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen. The similarities are remarkable. Marion Lazan is an exceptional writer and speaker. After reading her book, we were fortunate enough to have her as a speaker. She is marvelous. This book is a must. Pamela Blevins

Rating:
Summary: Mary Cooke and Kate Robinson's review
Review: Brief summary and Review:

Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story is a wonderful book of how a family stays together through thick and thin. The story is about one Jewish family's struggle for survival during the Nazi occupation of Europe. The family includes Ruth Blumenthal, the mother, Walter Blumenthal, the father, Marion Blumenthal, the daughter, and Albert Blumenthal, the son. The Blumenthals lived in concentration camps for six years which included Westerbork in Holland and the notorious concentration camp of Bergen-Belson in Germany. Conditions in these camps were so terrible that nearly half the camps population died of disease, starvation, exposure, exhaustion, or brutal beatings. The book received its name from young Marion's search to find four perfect pebbles of almost the same size. If Marion could manage to find these four pebbles, she felt that it meant her family would remain whole and be strong enough to survive the Nazi reign. This game kept young Marion's mind on things other than dead bodies lying around, the rumbles of her starving tummy, and the want for her family and life to go back to normal. This is a great story about the importance of family and diversity. I would encourage everyone to take this book home with them today and experience the true account of one family's struggle through the Holocaust.

Rating:
Summary: Mary Cooke and Kate Robinson's review
Review: Brief summary and Review:

Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story is a wonderful book of how a family stays together through thick and thin. The story is about one Jewish family's struggle for survival during the Nazi occupation of Europe. The family includes Ruth Blumenthal, the mother, Walter Blumenthal, the father, Marion Blumenthal, the daughter, and Albert Blumenthal, the son. The Blumenthals lived in concentration camps for six years which included Westerbork in Holland and the notorious concentration camp of Bergen-Belson in Germany. Conditions in these camps were so terrible that nearly half the camps population died of disease, starvation, exposure, exhaustion, or brutal beatings. The book received its name from young Marion's search to find four perfect pebbles of almost the same size. If Marion could manage to find these four pebbles, she felt that it meant her family would remain whole and be strong enough to survive the Nazi reign. This game kept young Marion's mind on things other than dead bodies lying around, the rumbles of her starving tummy, and the want for her family and life to go back to normal. This is a great story about the importance of family and diversity. I would encourage everyone to take this book home with them today and experience the true account of one family's struggle through the Holocaust.

Rating:
Summary: Mary Cooke and Kate Robinson's review
Review: Brief summary and Review:

Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story is a wonderful book of how a family stays together through thick and thin. The story is about one Jewish family's struggle for survival during the Nazi occupation of Europe. The family includes Ruth Blumenthal, the mother, Walter Blumenthal, the father, Marion Blumenthal, the daughter, and Albert Blumenthal, the son. The Blumenthals lived in concentration camps for six years which included Westerbork in Holland and the notorious concentration camp of Bergen-Belson in Germany. Conditions in these camps were so terrible that nearly half the camps population died of disease, starvation, exposure, exhaustion, or brutal beatings. The book received its name from young Marion's search to find four perfect pebbles of almost the same size. If Marion could manage to find these four pebbles, she felt that it meant her family would remain whole and be strong enough to survive the Nazi reign. This game kept young Marion's mind on things other than dead bodies lying around, the rumbles of her starving tummy, and the want for her family and life to go back to normal. This is a great story about the importance of family and diversity. I would encourage everyone to take this book home with them today and experience the true account of one family's struggle through the Holocaust.

Rating:
Summary: A very good read!
Review: Can you imagine being torn from all you know in just one moment? well that is exactly what happened to Marion Blumethal and her family, which included her father, Walter, her mother named Ruth, and her brother Albert. This story of loses and triumph is told by Marion herself. She explains what she and all of the millions of jews in Europe had to go through each and everyday. Marion and her family lived in a nice comfortable town in Germany called Hoya. Her father had a small shop where he sold shoes and men's and boy's clothing and her mother was a secretary and did bookkeeping. The Blumethal's were happy and very content with their lives until a man entered their lives that would change then forever. He would not only affect them but but millions of families across the world. He was known as Hitler. He started to become more noticed in the 1930's when he became known as the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' party, also known as the Nazi. They were against Jews, Communists, Gypsies, Slavic peoples, and deformed or crippled people. This hatred led to the death of millions of people and the Blumethal's were there for it all After Ruth and Walter found out about Hitler's plan, they decided to move to Holland and try to get papers to the U.S. But unfortunatly they did not get them in time and were taken away by the Nazi. For the next six and a half years, the Blumenthal's would go through a lot. When they were first taken away, they were taken to Westerbork which was in Holland, and then were taken to Bergen-Belsen which was in Germany. But through all their hardships, the Blumethal's survived. Finally in 1945, they were released. They were taken to eastern Germany and let free. But one thing would change, Walter, their father would no longer be with them anymore. He got a bad case of typhus just after the liberation and wasn't strong enough to survive. Now that mother, Marion, and Albert were free, they still wanted to go to the United States for a new life. It took three years until they got the necessary papers to get into the U.S. It was a very tough and tragic road but they had survived, and that was the most important thing.

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Summary: A beautiful novel, thick with hope and courage
Review: FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES is a story of a family that amazingly stays together through the most desperate of times. During the rise of Hitler their lives, like all other Jewish families, were shifted into remote dispare. But behind the hatred and riticule, the strength and courage that the Bumenthal family possesed kept them together as a family. Told through the eyes of a child, Marion Bumenthal, this novel is painful, but easy to read because of the comforting spirit of survival through out the storyline.

Rating:
Summary: Four Perfect Pebbles
Review: Four Perfect Pebbles is an emotional tale about a Jewish family during the Holocaust. The author of this book, Marion Blumenthal Lazan, was around four years old when her family moved from their home in Germany. Soon after that they moved to a work camp in the Netherlands, which is when she started to collect pebbles. Marion thought that if she was able to find four pebbles, almost exactly alike, then her family would survive. "Look closely. I have these three pebbles, exactly matching. Today I will find a fourth." I liked this book because it gave me so much information, so much to think about. I don't think that if I had gone through the same things I would have held up as well as Marion or her brother Albert. "As the food that had remained in the farmhouses was consumed, people began to go on foot or by bicycle to quite distant farms and villages to beg, borrow, or trade in order to keep their families nourished. My brother, Albert, was an expert at this. He was always off somewhere scrounging for food and other necessities." Four Perfect Pebbles is one of those books you can read over and over, catching more details each time. I would highly recommend this book. It is an amazingly touching account of what it was like for a Jewish child to grow up during World War II.