Rose Blanche

Heartbreaking, stark, focusing on the lack of empathy, actions of brutality of the Nazi occupation, and terror at the hands of soldiers who follow directions, without feeling from their soul.

Rose Blanche is based on the life of the author. In this story, Rose notices the tanks that hurry through what was a quiet, calm hometown. One day she witnesses a little boy who is taken abruptly by the Nazi soldiers.

Following him, she discovers him in a concentration camp located through the woods. She finds him and she bravely provides bread to him through the wire. While the book does not say that Rose is killed in helping him, the image of shots ringing out and Rose Blanche never returning to her home, lets the reader no that her assistance and show more caring cost her life.

This is an incredibly powerful book. show less

Rose Blanche lives in a small town in Germany. She notices that her town has become full of soldiers and trucks. One day she decides to follow one of the trucks into a forest until she stumbles upon something terrible. This story is about the Holocaust from the point of view of a young German girl. The illustrations in this book are incredibly detailed and moving. I found the story to be sad. I think it would be very hand navigating introducing a book like this to elementary students. Although I enjoyed this book, I don’t think I would use it to introduce the Holocaust to young students.

Rose Blanche is an interesting and fascinating look at WW2 and the abdication of Jews and the Holocaust seen from the eyes and perspective of a young German girl. Rose sees the war as a child would, without subjective influence and through a child's eyes. She ventures out amongst the forest to follow a truck taking a young boy and others to a concentration camp, and in horror spends the rest of the war helping to feed the survivors of the camp secretly. The book in a short time takes us through the beginning and end of the war with stunning detail as if you were a witness to it yourself. What I find fascinating is how accurate it pictures the speed to which these atrocities were occurring and how a it takes a child to see how horrendous show more and evil humans can become. It also plays to the history of the White Rose, an underground german resistance movement made up of German university students actively opposing the Nazi regime at home. show less

This heart-wrenching tale takes us back into the era of the worst genocide in history. A little girl stumbles upon a Nazi Concentration Camp and does her best to help the Jewish prisoners. As World War 2 comes to an end, and the American soldiers come in to clear out the Nazis, the little girl disappears. She tries to go say goodbye to her new friends, but they were gone and there were terrified soldiers everywhere. The little girl was never found. This story introduces the horrific events of World War 2 to children without terrifying them before they can understand what is happening. This story would be appropriate for middle school aged students.

This is a short and heartbreaking story about a little girl living in a small German town in the midst of World War II. The schoolgirl witnesses a boy being apprehended and forcibly put in a truck by fascist soldiers one day. She decides to follow the vehicle and discovers it has led her to a concentration camp, where there are starving children behind the barbed wire. From then on, Rose Blanche secretly squirrels away food to bring to the Jewish inmates, even as she wastes away day by day. The images do most of the storytelling, with Roberto Innoncenti's gorgeous and astoundingly detailed watercolour illustrations, which seem to fairly leap off the page, even as they depict the grim reality of that place and time. Innocenti, who hails show more from Italy, was the recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for illustration in 2008, an award which is presented every other year to both a living author and to an illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature. Of course, it's hard to say I enjoyed this book, but it manages to portray some harsh realities, yet with restraint and compassion, and would probably be an entirely appropriate introduction to children of age to an important part of our collective history. Available in both English and French. show less

Rose Blanche is a young girl living in Nazi Germany. Blinded by her childhood innocence, Rose is oblivious to what is happening around her until she follows a truck filled with children to a concentration camp. When she realizes everyone is starving, she sneaks them food up until the day she meets her tragic end. A heartbreaking tale about the consequences of war, I thought this book was great. The changes in point of view are impactful, especially after Rose's untimely death. I would read this book to any grade to give a different perspective on the Holocaust. I highly recommend this to people of any age and I think people who support war could benefit from reading it, as it shows how negatively and inevitably the innocent are impacted.

Thoughtful presentation on the experience of a young German girl during WWII. She follows army trucks and finds a concentration camp (tho those words are never used) and shares her food with the children there. The artwork is realistic, detailed, and takes up most of the page. The text is limited to about 4 lines per page.
The ending is not explicit, followed by "the mother waited a long time for her little girl", but allows a parent to discuss "what do you think happened?" or "what happens during war?" or "what would you do?" and the final page is spring coming & hope.