Six Million Paper Clips: The Making Of A Children's Holocaust Memorial

Rating:
Summary: Six Million Paper Clips
Review: I recently bought "Six Million Paper Clips" during a business trip to the US and wish I had taken more copies home to give away. Because it is a very powerful book on the Holocaust. But reading it you'll realize that is covers this monstrous atrocity only on the surface. In reality it shows that seemingly innocent behaviour ("I don't like this or that") is only the first stepping-stone to xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and what have you.
Normally my children have trouble reading English (except for the lyrics of rap songs) but this book they didn't put away. They read it in a single session one evening until deep in the night. And the next day they read it again.
Because this book has all the ingredients young readers look for: It tells (lovingly and never condescending) a compelling story, it has its cliff-hanger moments, even humour, and a happy ending that is asking for tears of joy. And guess what: The adults I gave the book to read loved it for the same reasons. And none of them were Jewish. This book is marketed as a children's book. But in reality it is much more, a book for all ages and for everyone. And we all can learn - and change.
My kids did. Reading the book it dawned on them that all their squabbles and sibling-infighting can go out of hand - as it did in Nazi-Germany and some other places and even right now. My kids ("I can't stand him and her") now want to sleep in the same room - to make up for times lost.
I have only one complaint: Is wish Six Million Paper Clips had been published when I was a kid. And this book deserves more than five stars.
Peer Herrmannsson