No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War

Rating:
Summary: Very Very Good Coverage of a Child's Wretched Experience
Review: After reading "I Have Lived A Thousand Years" (Bitton-Jackson), "The Cage" (Sender), and other "Shoah" books, I haven't found that this was best told. I found the writing technique difficult to "get into" as much as others, and though her story is riviting and compelling, it is not what I may have expected? Perhaps that is not the right word. Speaking of which, through out her book she uses profane language [...] I am shocked to see this [...] Why did she use these words? It makes her sound like she is using a slang dictionary for some verbs which makes it uncomfortable and strange to read. A fine story indeed, but strangely worded.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating, unforgettable read .
Review: Facsinating, in a word, describes Anita Lobel's book " No Pretty Pictures". Even though I am 33 years old I found her book to be incredibly interesting (even though it's claimed to be a "young adult book). I have always been interested in the Holocaust survivor stories, and "No Pretty Pictures" takes you on a roller coaster ride of ups and downs of one survivor and her younger brother. Anita Lobel's way of describing her memories make you feel like they happened yesterday. The way she relates the story through her long ago child's eye to the teenaged, more mature eye leaves the reader in awe of her ability to tap into shelved but not forgotten memories. I highly recommend this book to everyone. Even old adults (like me), would surely find this book inspiring and unforgettable. I will never forget it, it made me appreciate everything in my life a lot more.

Rating:
Summary: A Child's Perspective of War
Review: How does a five year comprehend the horror of war? This outstanding autobiographical piece by Anita Lobel explores this question by allowing us to experience her early life as a Jewish child during World War II. Unlike Anne Frank, Anita was merely five years old when she had to begin to cope with the effects of war. She awakens one morning to have the world as she knows it changed. Her father has left the country and does not appear in the evening at his regular time. Nazi soldiers come to the house and confiscate personal belongings from the family. Anita's mother obtains false papers which enable her to continue working, but eventually the threat of relocation becomes more serious. Anita and her younger brother must leave with their Nanny to find a safer place. Thus begins an incredible and frightening journey that would be a challenge for a full grown adult to surivive. Anita and her brother must cope with their spiritual identity as they face extreme physical and emotional danger. I would highly recommend this to adults and teens. From the first page you are swept into this child's life and it's hard to let go.

Rating:
Summary: I give No Pretty Pictures an A-
Review: No Pretty Pictures is probably by far the best book I have ever read. It is filled with true life tragedies and it gave me such a feeling where I was happy to be alive at this day in time and in such a place as America. About 50 years ago, it was a horrible time where in which Anita Lobel was at the wrong place at the wrong time! Her autobiography uses such imagery and imaginative language, it's as if i were in that period of time walking side by side with her! At times it came to a point where she used too much detail to describe certain aspects of her life as a young Jewish and Polish girl. I feel this book should be read by someone who wants to learn a bit about history, someone is lost in their own lives or someone who just wants to read a good book and shed a tear or two. The reason I mostly enjoyed this book so much was because I come from Poland and it gave me a sense of what my people including my grandparetns and other relatives went through!

Rating:
Summary: No Pretty Pictures, A child At War By Cassandra
Review: No Pretty Pictures, A Child At War

No Pretty Pictures is about a young girl who has to find her way back to her religion while she tries to understand the meaning of life. She starts out as a normal girl but with one difference. She was a Jew at a wrong time. Her name is Hannah. She has a little brother, a mom, dad, and a nanny. (The nanny is Christian.) Her dad left her and her family when she was five to go and fight in Russia; that is when things go wrong.
People know about the holocaust but few of us have lived through it. Well, this story is about a girl that does. When she was five years old she had to leave to go to a concentration camp. She leaves with her brother, and soon realizes that her life will never be the same. Her mom has papers that say she is a Christian so she doesn't have to go to the camp, but Hannah and her brother don't.
She goes through many hard times, and wonders if she will ever see her parents again. She was in the camps and away from her family for about six years, but she was away from her father the longest. Her father left and was not heard of until six years later when Hannah was in the hospital because she and her brother were diagnosed with tuberculosis. She was put in a hospital for more than three years but she was able to go to a real city. There, she learned the true meaning of life with a little surprise.
I really enjoyed this book. Many books have been written about World War II, but I feel like this one gives a better understanding about what really happened during the holocaust. I think that this book did have its strengths and it weaknesses. One strength is that it gave a good look at what happens to the kids that were in the holocaust, let alone everyone else. It made me feel like I was actually in the book, and it gave great detail about what happened to them and how they felt about the Nazis. One weakness was that it didn't give a clear description about how her family was reacting to the holocaust. Also, her dad left, but then he shows up in the end, but we don't really know what happened to him.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes learning about a new religion, and for someone who enjoys getting into a good book. I would not recommend this book to someone who was younger than nine because it is a harder book to read. I had many "favorite" parts in the book. Most of my favorite parts were the action parts. Many times they would talk about how the Nazis would treat Jews, and it made me feel like I was in the book, and I was one of the Jews who were being tortured.
This book made me think of a lot of questions. Some of them were, how would she react to the new change? How does her mom feel about her family being in the camps, and not her? Did Hannah ever lose hope? How would her brother feel about the experience? And to my surprise, all of them were answered.
I would definitely read this book again because it was so good, and I would still be surprised at some parts. I think this is the best book I have ever read about the holocaust. I hope that the author will try to make a book as good as this one once again.

Rating:
Summary: No Pretty Pictures, A child At War By Cassandra
Review: Summary:
In 1939, when Anita Lobel was five, German soldiers marched into Krakow. Anita's father, the owner of a chocolate factory and a Jew, runs away in the middle of the night. As a child, Anita Lobel spent years hiding from the Nazis and trying to protect her little brother. The two children have to work through assumed identities, a dangerous stay in the Krakow ghetto, hiding in a convent, and much more! They were captured and marched from camp to camp. Finally, in 1945, they were reunited with their parents and they had to learn to live all over again.

My thoughts:
This book touches your heart in a way few books do. Told from a child's point of view, using a very child-like voice, the story leaps out of the pages and into your mind. This book is written by an illustrator of beautiful picture books like Potatoes, Potatoes, and On Market Street. The title, No Pretty Pictures, seems to reflect her drawing career. In one example, when she first was allowed to enter school after the war, she was sent to an art class. There, she was given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and a set of new watercolors. She painted a wonderful blue chair, to the delight of her art teacher and the other students. She hasn't stopped painting since.

One moral that simply explodes out of this book is to never give up. No matter what life throws at you - starvation, imprisonment, hiding, or whatever - you can persevere. Anita overcame all of the obstacles placed in front of her, either by herself or with the help of others, and has created a spectacular life for herself. If she can succeed despite such odds, so can everybody else.

I think children would love to read this book when they are old enough to get all the way through it. At almost 200 pages, it is not a quick book to read. But it is a gripping, page-turning story - one of those kind that you can't put down. I think children will be drawn to the child-like voice of the story, the innocence the author manages to use. Anita Lobel is one of those truly gifted authors that can tell a horrible story about a child, for a child, without sounding condescending or self-pitying.

Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: Summary:
In 1939, when Anita Lobel was five, German soldiers marched into Krakow. Anita's father, the owner of a chocolate factory and a Jew, runs away in the middle of the night. As a child, Anita Lobel spent years hiding from the Nazis and trying to protect her little brother. The two children have to work through assumed identities, a dangerous stay in the Krakow ghetto, hiding in a convent, and much more! They were captured and marched from camp to camp. Finally, in 1945, they were reunited with their parents and they had to learn to live all over again.

My thoughts:
This book touches your heart in a way few books do. Told from a child's point of view, using a very child-like voice, the story leaps out of the pages and into your mind. This book is written by an illustrator of beautiful picture books like Potatoes, Potatoes, and On Market Street. The title, No Pretty Pictures, seems to reflect her drawing career. In one example, when she first was allowed to enter school after the war, she was sent to an art class. There, she was given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and a set of new watercolors. She painted a wonderful blue chair, to the delight of her art teacher and the other students. She hasn't stopped painting since.

One moral that simply explodes out of this book is to never give up. No matter what life throws at you - starvation, imprisonment, hiding, or whatever - you can persevere. Anita overcame all of the obstacles placed in front of her, either by herself or with the help of others, and has created a spectacular life for herself. If she can succeed despite such odds, so can everybody else.

I think children would love to read this book when they are old enough to get all the way through it. At almost 200 pages, it is not a quick book to read. But it is a gripping, page-turning story - one of those kind that you can't put down. I think children will be drawn to the child-like voice of the story, the innocence the author manages to use. Anita Lobel is one of those truly gifted authors that can tell a horrible story about a child, for a child, without sounding condescending or self-pitying.

Rating:
Summary: No Pretty Picture: A Child of War
Review: The book begins with five year old Anita living in her home in Poland. Soon for fear of the Nazi's her family must go into hiding. Anita and her brother are sent to Lapanow with their nanny. The nanny convinces everyone that Anita and her brother, who has to be dressed as a girl in disguise, are her two sick daughters. All is going very well until Anita's mother shows up. For fear of being found out they are on the run again. This time the nanny and children hide in a convent. Later the Nazis come and take the children to a concentration camp. They lived there in horrible conditions until they were saved by the American soliders. This is an excellent book over the Jewish struggle during the Holocaust. I would reccomend this book to anyone with an interest in the Holocaust.

Rating:
Summary: A Child's View of the Holocaust
Review: When Anita Lobel wrote this memoir, she did not try to write in a sopisticated "literary" style. She didn't try to "doctor" the events with years of hindsight and thinking. Instead, she wrote "No Pretty Pictures" with the clarity and simplicity and paradoxical depth of a child's mind. Anita's story begins in Krakow, Poland, where she is born into a middle class home and the future looks to be filled with ease, pleasure, and a good education. However, the Nazis change all that. With their invasion of the city and eventually, all of Poland, Anita and her brother must flee. At first they manange to escape to the Polish countryside with their nanny, and when that fails, they go to the ghetto with Anita's mother. But the inevitable finally happens, and Anita and her brother find themselves confronted with the ultimate evil...a concentration camp. "No Pretty Pictures" doesn't end there, and goes even further to chronicle the challenges and differences of the war's aftermath. This book is a valuable addition to a Holocaust collection-memoirs really are the best books written about a subject, and Anita's is wonderful. The thing that makes this one stand out from the others is the way experiences are captured with a child's sense of fear and safety, comfort and pain, and good and evil.