Customer Reviews

Brundibar (New York Times Best Illustrated Books (Awards))

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A book sorely in need of annotation. Retold by Tony Award winning playwrite Tony Kushner and illustrated with grace and aplomb by Maurice Sendak (the thinking kid's illustrator), the tale of "Brundibar" is retold in an entirely new format. Originally an opera performed by the children of Terezin (a Nazi concentration camp) for those Germans who had to be convinced that everything was just ducky in the camps. The children were, needless to say, killed after the final performance of this piece, and so the opera is as light-hearted as it is chilling. In the plot, two children attempt to find fresh milk for their ailing mother. Only milk will do. But they are chased away by the nasty Hitler look-alike, Brundibar, and must gather their forces (some 300 children or so) to face up to the bully.

Sendak and Kushner have created a story that fulfills several needs. It tells a story that has links to horrors unimaginable. At the same time, they have created a whole new text that deserves examination. That and it's darned purty. The pictures in this book are amazing, filled with tiny details that make a person think. When the brother and sister gather 300 children with them for aid, a Kilroy character holds a sign saying, "People are happy helping. It's never hard to find help. It is only hard to know that it's time to ask". The fact that Kilroy is best associated with the American GI forces in WWII may or may not be important to the scene. At any rate, it sparks dialogue. The book is Sendakian in the extreme due to the odd combination of realism and outright peculiarity. The ice-cream seller is going to give me nightmares for months, I'm sure.

I don't think this is necessarily a book for children. And there is nothing wrong with that. Why can't we have a couple picture books in this world that are NOT for children? We have animated films for adults. And video games for adults. Why not picture books that tackle history and art in one fell swoop? That isn't to say that this book is inappropriate for children. It isn't. They may, in fact, be enchanted by the tale. But in the event that they are not, it comes as little surprise. Kids aren't going to grasp the eloquent scene of children flying on blackbirds away from their sobbing mothers. Or the black smoke that billows from the oven conjured up by the children's singing.

A problem with the book comes with the lack of further information about the story's origins. The story never directly says anything about Terezin, and the brief bookflaps only mention the incident in passing. Facts (that the children of Terezin died after the show, for example) are not gone into with any depth. An author's afterword, or perhaps some sort of note explaining what inspired this story, would be greatly appreciated. Similarly, the illustrations are filled with little details that would yield a lot of pleasure for readers if they understood their significance. When the children are banned to the alleyway and sit under newspapers, what do the newspapers say? What is "skola" as written on the fence in one scene? Is it significant that the milkman is from Mekos Dairy?

"Brundibar" isn't a perfect creation. But it's a necessary one. Even if you don't understand it completely, you should at least try.

Over six decades ago, the opera Brundibar (Czech slang for bumblebee) was written. When the writer (Adolf Hoffmeister) was imprisoned by the Nazis in Terezin, the opera he and Hans Krasa wrote was smuggled into the camp. The children performed the opera; it kept their minds off the impending doom. The Nazis even filmed one of the 55 performances for a propaganda film, showing Terezin to be a model city for the Jews. Kushner and Sendak collaborated for over three years on this book, which recreates the opera in book form. At one point, Sendak even tore up all his drawings and started over. This is a masterpiece for children as well as adults. The prose is lyrical in tempo and style; the drawings are exquisite. The use of colored and Italian pencils evoke the crayons that the children of Terezin used (under the teaching direction of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, who was deported to Terezin in 1942, and then murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.) In the story, a brother and sister are sent by a doctor to the village's market square to fetch milk for their ill mother. Here they meet the milkman, the baker, and the ice cream maker. But without money, they can buy no milk. They spy Brundibar, a children hating, loud, brash, mean, street musician, dressed in a Napoleon hat and old medal filled uniform. With him around, they can make no money singing to pay for the milk. But with the help of some talking animals and other children, they perform a lullaby and earn the needed funds to help their mother. Brundibar is defeated (When performed as an opera, the children and audience understood that Brundibar represented their jailers.) Adults will note the last page, in which Brundibar writes a final note. Bullies and Brundibar vow to return one day. The note is written on the replica of a crumbled invitation, the actual party invitation that the Nazis used to invite dignitaries and Red Cross officials in 1944 to the actual performances, replete with a dancing man with a Jewish star on his costume (who is recreated in the role of the doctor).

Brundibar is another complex yet simple Sendak work. Tony Kushners lyrical prose matches perfectly with Sendak's incredibly vivid and beautiful illustrations.
Like other Sendak works, this book has several levels. It's a great kids story about bullies and how they can be dealt with. On a more adult level, its about how WWII and the Holocost affected the children of Europe, christian as well as jewish.
The text is adapted by Kushner from the libretto of the Opera by the same name. While the words stand up well on their own, the book flys on the wings of Sendaks wonderful art. Several stories are told within the story if the reader pays close attention to the details present in every illustration.
This book is destined to be a classic. (...) and buy a timeless piece of art from people who helped define the artform of the picture book.

I think I'm qualified to say whether a book has real quality as a book for kids--this one does. The story is lovely, a straight-forward folktale/teaching story on the importance of working together to overcome adversity. The language glitters and charms, as anyone who has seen Tony Kushner's plays would expect. And Maurice Sendak's illustrations are his most lucid, enchanting and charming since In The Night Kitchen. My five-year-old loved it, loves the story of two enterprising children defeating an adult bully, and has asked to have it read for the past few nights, since we got the book.

The backstory of the book--the fact that it is based on an opera written by the children of Teresienstadt concentration camp--is hinted at very subtly. If one is aware enough to pick up the clues (ranging from a gateway that reads "Arbeit Macht Frei," like the entrance to Auschwitz, to the yellow stars marking Jewish characters, to the barely legible program from the premiere of the opera, behind a handwritten note), the story is there. I found it gave the story a depth and resonance that stayed with me. If, on the other hand, you don't know about it--I certainly wasn't going to point it out to my kids, just yet--the book still works beautifully.

All in all, this is a beautiful work from two of the most remarkable artists who have been active in American popular culture in the last fifty years.

This book is a wonderful example of Sendak's recent (later) style. It is not so appealing, perhaps, as "Where The Wild Things Are," but it still wonderfully detailed, both fun and moving. And Kuchner's text, though much less interesting, is a good version of the text of the original children's opera on which the book is based. But that is the problem. Where are the names of composer Hans Krasa or playwright Adolf Hoffmeister? The opera, although written earlier, is most famous for being performed at the Terezin concentration camp. The children were mostly killed after the final performances, and Krasa himself was murdered shortly afterward at Auschwitz. Not only does the book not tell this story. It doesn't even seem to know that the work was created, not by Sendak and Kushner, but by Krasa and Hoffmeister. Although the opera is being revived this year by the New York City Opera, again the posters mention Sendak and Kushner but not the original creators. This does not mean that the book is not wonderful, as I expect will be this year's performance of the opera. But what about the creators and original performers, most of whom died for the work?

You're kids will love the illustrations and the story at face value. You will gain a little more out of it by knowing the background of how Brundibar was written and performed. A haunting classic.

My six-year-old home-schooled son is picky when it comes to books. He loves "Where the Wild Things Are" so I checked this out of the library. We read it at least a dozen times before it had to be returned and he keeps talking about it. The words roll off the tongue, though the story has that dark element (like Roald Dahl's stories) that challenges your own comfort . The pictures are a feast. And though the kids don't know it yet, the historical setting has been planted so that when we study WWII later, they might remember the little children with the gold stars. So now I must buy a copy. Hope you and your family will enjoy it too. Thank you, Mr. Kushner & Mr. Sendak.

Can be enjoyed as a children's book, but also so beautifully written & illustrated that it can be appreciated by people of all ages. Sender sent it out in a few days in perfect condition.

This is an unusual story, very interesting, based on an opera. A little boy and a little girl need to help their mother, and eventually they receive help to defeat the town bully and and saved the day. Some of the scenery looks Czech (it's a Czech opera) and in fact, some looks very much like Prague.

There is a historical connection of this Opera with the concentration camps - it was performed by children within the Terezin camp. The writer of the opera libretto was killed in the camps. There are a couple of Stars of David, and a sign saying "Arbeit Macht Frei," and a camp program worked into the illustrations. It's very well done, and the cultural references make the book even more appealing.

This is going to be a bit of a complex review, so let's get on with it.

First, some backstory. Brundibar was an opera performed by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp as a sop to show the Red Cross that they weren't being maltreated. Most of those children were later killed at Auschwitz.

It is clear from the illustrations that this book was not just inspired by the opera itself, but by the Holocaust. Or, no, not that it was *inspired* by the Holocaust, but that it's in tribute to those children. The illustrations have swastikas, many characters wear yellow armbands with a Star-of-David on them, the wicked character Brundibar looks like Hitler. At one point the children sing a lullabye about growing up and leaving, and the spread following the lullabye shows children being carried off by crows while their mothers weep - to adult eyes, it looks plainly like they're meant to be dead, although my nieces (pre-k and first grade) have never commented on it at all.

Now, you can take these details and go with them as far as you like. You can talk about what the pictures obviously represent,, or you can ignore them entirely. Either way is up to you, and I can't say one way is better than the other.

As far as the story itself, it's written in a sort of half-comic style, with the characters speaking in dialog bubbles, often directly to the reader. There are some scary scenes - they're chased from the square by the villainous Brundibar and hide overnight in an alley, there's the constant fear that their sick mother will die if they don't succeed in earning money for milk, and at the end of the book, after their triumphant victory, we have a message from Brundibar himself saying "Bullies don't give up completely. One departs, the next appears..." which I guess is true enough, but a bit depressing to contemplate.

My nieces adore this book. At one point, when the older one was three, I was reading it several times a day. The only problems I actually have with it is that a lot of the dialog is explicitly called "singing", but there's no indication of the tune, so you have to kinda make it up. This frustrates me, especially the aforementioned lullaby, which is kinda long and takes up two pages of text.

I recommend this book. However, I do suggest you read it first. If you think you'll be uncomfortable with the subject matter I mentioned, or that you don't want to have to explain it to your children, you shouldn't buy it.