Yellow Star

Yellow Star-by Jennifer Roy is a novel told in free verse based on the true story of Sylvia Perimutter who was one of 12 Jewish children (out of 250,000) that survived the Lodz Ghetto in Poland after WWII. The Nazis invaded Lodz Poland in 1939, when Sylvia was 4 ½ years old and her family tried to escape to Warsaw, but had to return for lack of work to Lodz. The Jewish families were segregated and walled off in what would become known as the Lodz Ghetto. The Nazis ordered all children to be sent away on the trains to the “work” camps, but Sylvia’s father knew how to pay attention, watch and observe every move the soldiers made so he could outsmart them, and find ways to keep his family safe. Over the years Sylvia’s parents show more smuggled the children from cellar to cellar, hiding not only Sylvia, but her sister Dora and their cousin Isaac, until 1945 when the Lodz Ghetto was liberated, just one day short of Sylvia’s 10th birthday. In 2006, after 50 years of keeping the story to herself, Sylvia recounts the events to her niece Jennifer Roy, who tells the story from a young Sylvia’s perspective, using a voice that matures with the years and is both realistic and relatable to young readers. The little girl braves hunger and faces with courage the hardships of hiding for years, losing friends, a favorite doll, and practically everything else, but persists by using her imagination to help her withstand the moment and all it entails. show less

The Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy is a true story about the Holocaust. The story is told through the eyes of Syvia Perlmutter, a young girl affected by the Holocaust, which was Jennifer Roy's aunt. This real-life perspective allows readers to connect with her feelings of fear, making the story unforgettable. The yellow star itself is a powerful symbol in the book. It represents the discrimination and dehumanization of Jewish people during the holocaust. Literary elements such as vivid imagery help bring the historical reality to life as if the reader is a silent character in the book walking alongside Syvia. This was a very emotional book that has always made me stop and think about my family and made me question myself if I would take show more the risk as Sylvia and her dad did. This book is important for children because it teaches the dangers of prejudice. Sylvia’s experiences can teach lessons of history that are never forgotten, even when they are hard to talk about. This is an appropriate book for young children to learn about the harsh realities that children and families went through. This story has stuck with me through the years and will always be a recommendation for children to encourage empathy and historical understanding. show less

While I've read many books regarding the holocaust, this one shone above some others. It packed an emotional whallop.

Like so many others who went through hell under the brutal terror of a crazy man named Adolf Hitler, the author's aunt was shy and hesitant to speak of the unspeakable.

Convincing her that her story was unique and needed to be told, through many phone conversations, Jennifer Roy's Aunt Sylvia provided an in-depth account of the daily terror of living in the Polish ghetto of Lodz.

Told from first-person verse Syvia, later changed her name to Sylvia, was 4 when she and 1/4 of a million Jews were herded like cattle to be enclosed, with no hope of escape, into a cramped section specifically marked for Jews.

Trying desperately show more to make sense of it all, she learns much of what is happening through snippets of parents conversations. Then, gradually she watches as friends, families are packed into trains. As the years progress, Hitler's plan becomes more evident as increasingly children and older people are marked for extinction.

She and her family survived by luck, intelligence and sheer fear and fortitude. Buried in dirt in a cemetery at night, she was inches away from the boots that could have/would have kicked her and killed her. Hidden in a cellar were eleven other children who miraculously survived.

Interestingly, as Hitler was losing the war and the camp guards became fewer and fewer, overhead in the night time skies were sounds of planes bombing the area. As the group huddled together in an open area, it was the reflection of the mandated yellow stars that shone through, indicating that those in the area were Jews to be rescued.

When Russian pilots rescued the group, there were only 800 people, of which twelve were children. Syvia was one of twelve who were not killed under Hitler's command. Now ten years old, for the first time in years, she had food, safety and a family who could move forward without fear.

Highly recommended. show less

This isn't your typical book about the Holocaust, as it's appropriate for younger children. Written in verse through the perspective of a young girl, it's appropriate for readers of any age. Therefore, it's an excellent tool for introducing this subject to children. I think adult readers will find it poetic and thoughtful, as well.

I highly recommend this book for book groups or for students. The Holocaust theme is painful for many people, but this book provides an opportunity to brooch the subject with poignancy and empathy rather than with fear.

This book succeeds at the tricky job of exposing the horrors of the Holocaust while staying appropriate for children. Due to the protagonist's youth and naivete, she's not fully aware of what's going on around her, but she and the reader will both sense the danger even if they don't know all that much about the children of the Lodz Ghetto. The protagonist's father is the real hero of the story, managing to keep the family together and save his daughter from certain death several times. I really enjoyed this book, and I think kids will too.

Based on the memories of Roy's aunt, one of the few children to survive the Lodz Ghetto. It's heartbreaking and horrifying, but bears witness to an important chapter in history from a child's point of view. Roy uses free verse to capture a child's impressions of life in unspeakable circumstances.

An inspirational story written by the niece of a Holocaust survivor, Sylvia (Syvia)Perlmutter Rozines, as told to her over the phone. It not only tells the story from a child's point of view, it also tells the stories of other survivors through the eyes of the same child and the horrific conditions of the ghettos. Incredibly sad but touching, Syvia has so many questions about the war and why the Jews are so hated by the Nazis. One can only think that it is a miracle that she survives the atrocities of war, thanks in most part to the quick thinking of her father and the help of other adults around her. The author's choice of writing style is brilliant and offers much more impact upon the reader. AS I continue to learn of the horrors of show more WW2, I desperately wish that wars and fighting would stop as there are no winners, only a great loss of the innocent and much sadness. show less