Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding educational experience! My kids were mesmerized.
Review: I have been teaching for 22 years, and no book I have ever asked students to read has mesmerized them as much as THE CAGE. Even my most unreachable students willingly read when we use this in my classroom. As I teacher I can see the impact in the eyes of my students as the author's personal experience comes to life on the pages. This is the second year I have had all 100 of my students purchase the book for our classroom unit, and I have yet to have even one student say he/she was disappointed.
(PS: If the author is reading this review, my students would love to write to you. Your book deeply moved them.
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Summary: English Student RSS
Review: The book the "The Cage" by Ruth Minsky Sender is an amazing story about the Holocaust. The story starts out with the main character, Riva, waking up in a cold sweat because of a nightmare she had about the Holocaust. While talking to her curious daughter who wants to know why the Holocaust happened she finds herself back in Lodz, Poland in 1939. Riva is the oldest child with three younger brothers. Her father died of a disease but she has a strong, loving Mama. The Jews of Poland during this time are being round up by the Nazis and brought to the ghetto. The ghetto gates are shut tight and Riva and her family like many others are trapped in this cage. Thousands of Jewish families are herded into the ghetto where there is no work, hunger, and disease. In the ghetto, Riva's younger brother, Laibele, contracts tuberculosis. In September, 1942 the Nazis are inside the ghetto taking away the sick, the old, as well as the children. Riva's mother decides to hide Laibele and suprisingly enough he is not found, however the Nazis take away Mama to a concentration camp. "I hear Mama's voice, filled with hope. A world full of people will not be silent. We will not perish in vain. She was so sure. But she perished, and the world was silent." Riva now has to be strong for her brothers' sake, for Mama, and for herself. She is determined to survive and won't let the Nazis destroy her hope. People around Riva look to her for support and hope. She lost her family to the Nazis, but she won't let them take her either physically or spiritually. I think this book is extremely well written. It keeps the reader wanting to know what will happen next. The writing is a fast paced read. I believe the story shows the truth and essence of the Holocaust. I would recommend this book to middle school students because of the issues described and because of its excellent style.
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Summary: The Cage
Review: Recommendation I would highly recommend this book to people in the ages between 13-and older. If you would like to learn about the holocaust, its great because this book shows strength, courage and how to make it through the hard times. I really liked this book because I really liked learning about what happened back then and what went on. Back then the Jewish police would go to peoples house to make sure they were home and they didn't escape. One night Riva and all her brothers are sleeping, and they hear a knock on their door, it's the Jewish police." Riva and her brothers hold their breaths and wait." The police just wanted to make sure that they were in their house. The book also showed leadership because when Riva's Mother gets taken away, so Riva takes care of her two brothers. The Child Welfare department went to Rivas house to put them in all different homes, but when Riva heard that she was determined to make sure that did not happen. Riva was first thinking " Maybe they would be better off and find good homes, be happy .Is it wrong to want to hold our family together?" then she thought it over again and said to child welfare ' "A mother does not give up her children! A mother does not give up her children."
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Summary: Hollz Review
Review: The Cage, was such a real and terrific book. The author did such an amazing job on the descriptions. This book is about a young teen girl who grew up in a Jew hating world, the terrible thing is that she was a Jew. She grew up in the ghetto with her mother and her three brothers. One of her brothers dies of a terrible sickness. In the beginning of the book her mother was taken away by the Nazi guards. Every time there was a knock on Rivas door, everyone would hold there breath hoping that they would stay together. They all try their best to take care of each other, especially when one is sick. When her mother was taken away Riva was able to adopt her brothers and be their new mother. Riva now had a lot going on. Her brother, Motele in my opinion, was the strongest character. He was also going out and breaking the laws to try to feed and save their family. Towards the middle of the book many of the Jews were taken out of the ghetto and put into camps. These camps were Nazi camps called Auschwitz. When they were taken to this camp Riva and her brothers were separated. All of the Jews got their hair shaved off and of of their belongings now belonged to the Nazis. They had nothing to call their own. When Riva gets put into the barracks she makes a whole new kind of family. All of the Jews stuck together and tried to help each other out
Riva and all of the Jews are put through extensive labor and pain. Through the end Riva makes it out alive, although she was never able to find her brothers or her mother.
This book was a great and thrilling book. I learned a lot about the Holocaust and a lot about personal experiences. This book was very well written. I got a great perspective on how the Jews felt.
Rating:
Summary: The Cage
Review: The Title of my book is The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender. The cage is about a girl name Riva who loses her mother because the Nazis take her away. Riva lives in the Ghetto with her 3 brothers. They all try their best to take care of their older sister by giving up some of their bread in the week to get her things to make her feel better. Riva and her brothers are taken to a Nazi camp called Auschwitz. Riva and her brothers are separated and Riva is very sad. She tries to stay with a couple of her friends from back in the Ghetto. She is put through a lot of hard labor at Auschwitz and has to get up early in the morning every day. She goes to many different camps and she never finds her brothers or her mother. She writes poetry and reads it to the other Jews in the barracks. She is very brave and she doesn't know if she will live or if she will die, but she keeps hope. In the end Riva does make it alive. She is one of not many Jews who survived the Holocaust. This book to my opinion is one of the best books I have ever read. I could not put this book down. It was very sad at some parts of the book and it made me feel emotional for the people who died and tried their best to survive the Holocaust. If I could give it a rating on 1-10 it would absolutely be a 10! It was an amazing book that brought me back to the 1940's at the time of the Holocaust. I love this book and I would encourage anyone to read this book because it is an amazing book.
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Summary: The Cage
Review: This is a wonderul book about the holocaust. Riva the main character in the story has some really hard times. If you don't know what the holocaust is it is ok because I'll tell you right now. The holocaust is when Hitler was controling the Jews. They had know write to do anything because Hitler thought that because the weren't christian that he could just boss them around and there was nothing that could stop him. People were sent to consetration camps. They were slaves. If people were sick they would send them away from there family. This book is a very interesting. If my teacher made me read it again i would read it in a heartbeat.
Rating:
Summary: The Cage
Review: The events described in this book run a real gamut of the human emotions, which is why I was kind of disappointed that they weren't really presented in a more descriptive or compelling way. Like other reviewers have pointed out, there isn't much suspense or description of life outside of the little world Riva and her brothers live in, and it is repetitive in spots. The chapters where Riva is allowed to be transported to a civilian hospital for several surgeries on her blood-poisoned finger, for example, just aren't as gripping and interesting as they could have been had there been more descriptive language. Obviously this was a very rare occurrence indeed, and the camp doctor could have lost her life for even daring to approach the female commandant about the matter, but we don't really get more than a cursory description of how Riva was transported to and from the hospital and had to go to a number of them before finding one that would operate on a Jewish prisoner. Some of the dialogue also seemed unrealistic and more like something the speaker was thinking or feeling about what was going on rather than something a normal person would have articulated in that way at that desperate time. I hate to say this about a book about the Shoah, but it just seems too predictable and formulaic; family stays together in spite of worsening hardships, mother gets taken away, remaining siblings stay loyal to one another and refuse to be separated, family and friends are deported, protagonist survives camps and is liberated. It's a shame, because with more complex vocabulary and greater suspense and descriptions, these unique events (such as Riva going to the hospital and allowed to write poetry in camp) could have been more powerful and haunting.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Good....
Review: I read this book as a literature circle assignment and was shocked by the story. Of course I had heard and read many things about the Holocaust, but never before had I read something that conveyed the feelings and loss of a character in this time period in first person. I really must give this book credit for really expressing the cruelty of some people and the undying hope of others...it shocked and amazed me, respectively.
There was so much sadness in this book and many passages had me crying. The poems in which the main character expressed her feelings through her ordeal were especially heart-wrenching and extremely touching. It had been a long time since I'd cried over a book and I cried for this one. I also have to give this book credit for its ability to express so much feeling. The reader can really connect with the characters.
Now, the reason I couldn't give this book a higher rating was because of the plot itself. Although there were some rather suspenseful parts, the majority of the book was very repetitive. Sadly, I even found myself almost skimming some of these pages because there was almost nothing mildly important to be read there. This was the book's one and only fault.
For those that haven't read this book, give it a try. Keep in mind, though, that there are very few laughs and very many tears to be dealt with as the reader.
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