Customer Reviews

Good Night, Maman

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Books are very important to me. I love to read them and unleash their knowledge. I especially like fiction books on olden times. From the Holocaust, the Civil War, and subjects like that. They teach me about life before me, and high and low points of history. One example of these books is one that I just finished reading entitled, Good Night Maman. The book is a Holocaust story, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was a great book, and I really enjoyed the time period story line and characters of this story.
One reason that I really enjoyed the time period of this book is because I think the Holocaust is very interesting to learn about. It shows, and teaches me how awful those years were, and how brave the Jewish people were to have the will to survive those dark years. Secondly, in the book, I was taught things that I never knew happened in the Holocaust. Never was I aware that people escaped Europe on boats to come and be safe in American refugee camps. Finally, this book taught me to always respect your family. The main character in the book had her brother in life, and that was all, so she needed to learn to respect the only family that she had. This book taught me things teachers could never explain to me. My level of knowledge on this point in world history has expanded because of this book.
In many of the Holocaust books that I read, the story line is always the same. Thw people go into hiding, get caught by the Nazis and go to a concentration camp. However, as I read on into the book, I was very pleased to know that the same old story line would not be used in this story. Instead, the brother and sister, Marc and Karin, are forced to leave France without their mother, and get on a boat and head to an American refugee camp. Now, when I realized that this was indeed going to happen, I couldn't believe it. I kept yearning to read more, and fine out where the strang plot would take me next. Furthermore, I think that this new and interesting story line is what made me not want to put the book down.
I also enjoyed the two main characters in the book very much. 12-year-old Karin, and her older, 14-year-old brother Marc, are described in the book at very strong, and I admire that greatly. Those two had the courage to leave behind their sick mother in France and travel all alone across a big ocean to a place they had never seen and start a new life. I think that shows that the author wanted to relate her fictional characters to the real life victims of the Holocaust who were also strong and brave. Even when it seemed the two would never see their mother again, they stayed strong, learned English, and created a wonderful life for themselves. Throughout the book, I often grew jealous of these two characters. I wished myself to be just as strong and brave as they were. Even though I know they weren't real people, I still admired their courage.
I enjoyed this book a lot, mostly because of the way the time period, characters, and story line all appealed to my liking. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about the Holocaust. Also, the book has a nice flow, and is easy to follow. In other Holocaust books, many characters are introduced,and it gets confusing. That doesn't happen in this book thought so don't worry. The book really lets you know how hard it was for people who suffered in the Holocaust. In conclusion, it is a great book to which I give two thumbs up and would totally recommend it.

The characters are easy to realate to. As you are reading you feel like you are really experiencing the events that happen. When you start reading it you can't set the book down. Then, when you finish reading it you feel like you have lost a good friend. It's a must read!

Good Night Maman is a historical fiction novel about a young girl fighting for her life in th German War. Young Karin Levi, travels through Venice, Italy and many other countries. While travelingshe finds a girl who tells her there is a ship leaving for America taking refugees. karin and her brother Marc, eventually arrie to the ship, as they et sail to America. Karin mees many boys and girls her age while visiting America.
Norma Fox Mazer is an exquisit author that I would probably recommendfor children i grades 6-8. This bok contains good details to help you visualize the truths of all the lives taken, by the Nazi's in the German War. I like this book because, it is very exciting ad is quite an exciting and yet suspenseful tory, that i couldn't put down.

Remarkable!
Good Night, Maman by Norma Fox Mazer is both heartwarming and heartwrenching. The author tells a story of a Jewish family in the 1940's hiding in France after the loss of their father. The main characters Karin and her brother Marc are brought to life as they encounter the difficulties and trials of trying to get to America to live with an aunt. As the journey unfolds the story gives details of what happened to Karin, Marc and other immigrants. The story also explores the people who helped the Levi family and others of Jewish descent. Karin and Marc must gather the courage and the strength to be on their own at an early age while learning about a new culture and new expectations.
Good Night, Maman is an excellent read aloud for a class studying WWII. The book also goes nicely with another WWII book entitled Number the Stars.

I found it extremely interesting, informative and moving to read this book in conjunction with watching the CBS Miniseries HAVEN (February 2001) starring Natasha Richardson and Ann Bancroft. (At this writing Bancroft has been nominated for an Emmy.) The heroine of GOOD NIGHT MAMAN is a displaced child who becomes one of the Oswego refugees safely - almost miraculously- escorted to the United States by Ruth Gruber in the midst of WW 2.
In GOOD NIGHT MAMAN, NFM puts an unforgettable personal face and history on a brave girl who survived against all odds. The combination of reading this book and then watching HAVEN (or vice versa) is extremely powrful.

This moving novel by award-winning children's novelist Norma Fox Mazer (who sadly passed away in 2009) tells the story of Karin Levi, a 12-year old girl whose comfortable life is overturned when the Nazis occupy Paris in 1940. Karin, together with her mother and older brother, flee Nazi-occupied Paris and start a new life of constant fear, as they are first hidden in the countryside, and later escape into American-occupied Southern Italy (without their mother, who by this point in the narrative is too ill to travel).

The two children manage to secure passage on the Henry Gibbons, an actual ship filled with European refugees which came to the U.S. in 1944. Although the United States, like other countries around the world, largely turned its back on the desperate Jews of Europe, in 1944 FDR decided to permit transport of 1,000 refugees from Italy to the United States. Many but not all of those who sailed were Jews, as Roosevelt did not want the venture to be perceived as a "Jewish project."

The ship's occupants were sent to Fort Ontario in Oswego, New York, where they were put in a refugee camp surrounded by barbed wire. Mazer explains in an afterword that the 982 people on this ship, who came from 15 countries and ranged in age from an infant to an 80-year-old man, were the only group of refugees brought to America by the U.S. government during World War II. When the war ended, those "guests" were allowed by President Truman to stay in the United States.

As one might expect, Karin's adjustment to life in the refugee camp is not easy. Karin, who believes her mother may still be in hiding in France, pours out her heart in letters to her dear maman that she is unable to mail, not knowing where her mother might be. Her older brother Marc "became Maman," trying to provide routine and structure for his younger sister. But he doesn't want to talk about the past. He asks her "Why are you always thinking about things that are done with, Karin? It only makes you feel weak and unhappy." Gradually Karin begins to make friends with other girls at the camp, as well as an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Stein, who remind her of her grandparents. Soon a girl named Peggy from the other side of the fence befriends her as well, helping her to learn to sound American, and when Karin finally is allowed to start school, Peggy is in her class. Karin is even able to spend her first American Thanksgiving at Peggy's home. But will Karin ever be reunited with her beloved mother?

This novel, published in 1999, would be an excellent book to read in conjunction with Is It Night or Day?, since both deal with young girls about the same age who leave Europe without their parents to begin life as refugees in America--one at the refugee camp in Oswego, the other with relatives in Chicago.

I first read this book when I was in the 7th grade for a book report....I'm now 21 and have been trying to remember the title of this book for so long because I loved it! It's such a good book because the characters are believable and you can feel their true emotions. read it!

this book good night maman is one of the best books i have read i just can't keep my eye's off it!!! this book it about the holocoust and it is where they have to give up every thing they own and run and hide from the german soilders because they invated there country and said that jews were very different and that they weren't regular people and so they got limited from every thing the people who weren't jews could do!but everyone should give this book a chance because this is a book i can not take my eye's off of!

How great of a Book!

The book I read is called Good Night Maman. Its about a girl name Karin who is a Jew and is trying to hide from the Germans. She and her brother and mom move from place to place looking for a place to hide. There is a man along the way they met and they live with him because he is a Jew to .He has many Jews hiding in his house. Soon they have to leave because the Germans are coming. Karin's mom was sick so they have to leave her. On their way they come across a boat who is taking Jews to America, and they get on the ship. They have to live in a place called a fort were they are blocked by a wall to the outside world. Read this book to find out the ending.
I loved this book! It kept my interest and it was fun to read. I would recommend this book. This book explains very well so kids can understand! This showed me how Jews felt along time ago. I would love to read more books by this author. I hope you like this book as much as I did!

This is a good book. I like the way it feels like its is true (in real life)!

IT'S GREAT!