Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story

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Summary: four perfect pebbles
Review: This book called Four Perfect Pebbles is about a girl that is trying to find four perfect pebbles but she only finds three pebbles that were almost the same. This book is about people in the Holocaust that are helping people to stick together. They are trying to be smarter than Adloph Hittler.

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Summary: This book is one of the best books that I have read
Review: This book describes the hardships that the Jewish people had to go through during World War 2. They talk about all the suffering that they went through. The family was shipped through all of Eroupe to camps. Marion thinks that it is because of the four pebbles that she finds in one of the camps. This book reads like The Diary Of Anne Franck.

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Summary: Do you know the real story?
Review: This book gives a good look at the life of a Jewish person during the time of Hitler and the Nazis. It was written by someone who was there and had the real account. The description helped me to realize how bad it was in a concentration camp. I would recommend this book for middle school age children who already know a little bit about Hitler and the Jewish people.

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Summary: For perfect pebbles
Review: this book gives you feeling of how the Hollocaust was. I know by reading this book that it was a gruesome experience for Marion. This book painted a picture in my mind while I read it.the book told about world war 2 and the hidious things that hitler did to start it. the book told me that Marion had a bad childhood but a pretty good Audulthood. I recomend this book to any six grader or parent. for the parents that want to read this book I say that it would only talk you a couple hours to read. It's a easy read for parents but is semidifficult for kids to read because of the german words in the book.It's a good book to read. read it

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Summary: Excellent Young Adult Book
Review: This is an excellent book for young adults who have become familiar with Anne Frank. It deals with life prior, during and after the Holocaust. A great way to see how survivors dealt with the challenges of emigration and assimilation into American culture as well.

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Summary: WWII as seen through the eyes of a child.
Review: Though this story is told as Marion saw it as a young child, it nevertheless remains a powerful and moving documentary of the most devastating war our planet has ever known.

This book is also a very good WWII primer. It would be required reading for a class entitled "WWII 101".

Marion Blumenthal spent her early childhood in Hoya, Germany with her brother and parents. They were a happy, prosperous Jewish family who owned a successful shoe retail business. But Marion's safe, secure world was shattered by the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. The Nazis, the dominant political party of the Third Reich, implemented their radical racial attacks against Jews, Gypsies, Slavics, Homosexuals, Communists, and whomever else was seen as a threat to Aryan purity. This meant the end of life as Marion knew it. Each passing day was a struggle to stay alive and out of the Nazis' clutches.

Despite their best efforts, the Blumenthal family fell prey to the Nazis. They eventually landed in Westerbork, a camp from which the prisoners where shipped to their deaths in places such as Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. The Blumenthals were transferred to Belsen, and despite their bleak future, Marion clung tenaciously to the hope that better times would come for her and her family. To bolster her and their spirits, she set about collecting four perfectly-shaped pebbles from the grounds of the camp. This was her metaphor for her family which, hopefully, would remain as one till the end of the war.

As the war dwindled to a close and Germany suffered one defeat after another, camp prisoners were shuttled along the remains of the Germain railways as the Nazis tried to desperately conceal the evils they had commited in the abandoned camps. Just when it seemed the war would drag on forever, Marion, her family, and their fellow prisoners were intercepted and liberated by Russian troops.

A beautiful story of inspiration, courage, and keeping a positive attitude even in the most dire of circumstances.

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Summary: How FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES Came into Book Form
Review: When I arrived in the United States at age 13, I was so busy learning English and trying to catch up to a proper grade for my age, and working after school to help my Mom pay bills, that I had no time to talk about my terrible past. I had to put those years behind me and get on with life.

And, because of the enormity of the suffering we endured, I never thought anyone would believe me if I did tell them about my wartime experiences, about my 6 1/2 of incarceration in transit and concentration camps. Few classmates of mine at Peoria Central High school knew of my past until some 40 years later, when FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES was published.

It wasn't until 1979 that I spoke publicly about the Holocaust, first in a synagogue, and then in schools and organizations. I had jotted down on a legal pad my recollections, about 8 pages of notes. I recall I was a very unhappy person for several days while dredging up these old memories.

When I first began speaking, I remember being quite nervous about getting in front of an audience. Speaking became easier for me, probably in large part because of the wonderful response of my audiences. However, after a talk, at night, I had to cope with what I had said that day. And, although I am at ease in speaking to an audience with as many as 1,000 persons these days, I still feel the strain of those long ago memories long after the talk. I am thankful that I have Nathaniel, my husband, at my side at night.

Lila Perl called me in 1993 wanting to know where and when I was next going to speak. A mutual friend, Joan Newman, referred Lila to me after hearing me speak at a Baldwin Hadassah chapter meeting. I didn't know it at the time, but Lila was a well-established author of biographies and social history books for children and young adults, with 49 published fiction and nonfiction titles to her credit.

After witnessing my presentation to a group of 5th graders at the Hewlett Elementary School, and seeing th students' reactions, Lila said, "You must put your story into written form. Would you be willing to work with me on a book?"

I had never thought of writing a book although Susan, our daughter, had asked that I write about my experiencs for future generations of our own family.

Under our agreement, Lila was to be responsible for checking on the factual background of the story and for the preparation, organization, and writing of the manuscript. She was also to see the finished work through the press and to handle all matters pertaining to the literary form and style. Further, she researched and supplied the documentary photos in the book that were to supplement my personal photos.

As a result of working closely together, we gave the story immediacy and drama. I retold my own experiences and my mother, who had borne the most complete effect of our ordeal, contributed her amazing detailed recollections. My brother Albert, two years older than I, was also involved, and Lila traveled to California to interview him for his first-hand accounts and vivid memories of certain portions of the book.

Some family members felt that we should write the book as a first-person story. But Lila pointed out that I, having been born in 1934, was unable to personally report on our family's situation in Germany during my earlier years, and could know only what was later told to me.

The manuscript was submitted to several publishing houses, and it wasn't long before Greenwillow, a division of William Morrow, accepted it for publication. Elizabeth Shub, our editor at Greenwillow, told me that when she read the manuscript for the first time, it affected her so deeply that she cried.

FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES is currently in its 8th printing at Greenwillow and is available in paperback from Avon-Camelot Books. It will also be available in a Japanese edition to be published by Asunaro Shobo of Tokyo and is in the process of being translated and soon to be published in German. It is also available in schools through the Scholastic Book Club.

I am proud that the book has earned many wonderful reviews and honors. I am grateful to Lila Perl for all her hard work and enthusiasm for this project and to Greenwillow for seeing the worth of this subject. It gives me great satisfaction to know that thousands of school students are reading FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES either for class assignment or on their own. The story of the Holocaust must be kept alive in order to guard against its ever happening again.

Over the past few years, I have spoken to and with some 30,000 students and adults in public and private schools, organizations, synagogues and churches. I have made many beautiful friendships around the country through these talks, and always have lots of mail and e-mail with interesting comments and questions to answer.

After you read FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES, please give me your comments via e-mail. Should your school or orgnization desire me to make a presentation, please contact me at [e-mail] You can also visit me on my web site at www.FourPerfectPebbles.com

My wish to each of you is for a peaceful world, one in which there is love, respect and tolerance for one another regardless of one's religious belief, race, color or national origin; a world in which we will look for the simlarities in people, not for their differences.