If I Should Die Before I Wake [Library Binding]

Han Nolan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1996

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. As Hilary, a neo-Nazi initiate, lies in a coma, she is transported back to Poland at the onset of World War II and into the life of a Jewish teenager.

--This text refers to the School & Library Binding edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Few novels can match this effort for its stupefying lack of taste. Teenager Hilary, who has never recovered from the long-ago death of her father and from her Bible-thumping mother's temporary abandonment of her, lies in a coma, the victim of her own adventures with her neo-Nazi pals. Suddenly she "slips" into another life--that of a Jewish girl in Poland at the beginning of the Nazi occupation. It turns out that she is sharing the memories of her hospital roommate, whose telepathic communications eventually bring about Hilary's salvation. Gratuitously lurid subplots involve teenage American neo-Nazi depredations and the torture of Hilary's young Jewish neighbor; the Holocaust flashbacks feature a psychic grandmother. Passages about Nazi ghettos and concentration camps seem cobbled together from survivors' memoirs (noticeably, Kitty Hart's several autobiographies and Fania Fenelon's Playing for Time ), while the overall conceit owes a major debt to Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic. Any hope that the author will redeem this misbegotten first novel is quickly quashed by her unrelievedly airless prose. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7-12-Hilary Burke, a young Neo-Nazi, is in a coma after a motorcycle accident. Ironically, she has been taken to a Jewish hospital and shares a room with elderly Chana, an Auschwitz survivor. Instrumental in the kidnapping of her 13-year-old Jewish neighbor, Hilary hates all Jews and believes one caused her father's death. Through Chana's memories, the girl is transported back to World War II, experiencing for herself the horrors suffered by Polish Jews just trying to survive, first in the Lodz ghetto, then in the concentration camp. While the subject matter is certainly compelling, this first novel is not as powerful as Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic (Viking, 1988) or as chilling as Jay Bennett's Skinhead (Watts, 1991). Nolan does a better job of portraying Chana than Hilary or her Bible-quoting mother, but Mrs. Burke's dysfunctional personality and Hilary's problems with her are clear. Interspersed are Biblical passages that are sometimes appropriate to the text, but often unnecessary and distracting. The ending is predictable and soppy: Chana dies leaving an album full of family photos to Hilary. Stick to the numerous, excellent-quality, existing examples of Holocaust literature.
Jo-Anne Weinberg, Greenburgh Public Library, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Library Binding
• Publisher: Rebound by Sagebrush (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785783660
• ISBN-13: 978-0785783664
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,585,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Birmingham, Alabama. When I was 9 months old my family moved to New York where I spent most of my childhood and teen years. When I was a toddler, I had white blond hair that stood straight up on my head. My family called me "Hoot" back then because that and my big eyes made me look like an owl. I couldn't pronounce my first and middle names, which were Helen Harris, so I said "Hannah Hollis". My family shortened this to a variety of nicknames: Hahn, Han Holl, Han, Hannie, and Hannie Bucket, which my husband later shortened to Hannie B. The neighborhood kids also called me Hahn. It is now pronounced, Han, and it rhymes with man.

I was very active as a child--I loved to jump on beds, do somersaults, handstands and flips on and off of sofas, climb trees and do different tricks on the monkey bars at the playground. I also liked my own thoughts best. In kindergarten, I paid no attention to my teacher. She told my mother that she thought I had a hearing problem. My parents had my hearing tested. My ears were fine. When my mother told me what the teacher had said I replied that I heard my teacher all right, it's just that she kept interrupting all my good thoughts!

I've loved stories for as long as I can remember. One of my favorite memories is of my father telling me bedtime stories, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, B'rer Rabbit, and stories from the Bible such as my favorite, Joseph and his Coat of Many Colors. I loved to make up my own stories too. I didn't write them down until I was a little older, but I sure loved to make them up.

One of my favorites books as a child was "Harriet the Spy". I wanted to be a spy, so I started spying on my family, especially my older sister. It turned out I was a terrible spy because I kept getting caught, but I kept a spy notebook, just like Harriet. I quickly gave up on the spying, but writing thoughts and stories in a notebook has been a habit for me ever since.

When I was ten, I saw the movie "The Sound of Music" and I fell in love with it. Back then if you wanted to see a movie more than once you had to go to the theater. We didn't have videos. I only saw it once but I had the record album with all the music on it and I learned every word of it. I made up dances to go with it and gave a performance for my family. My brothers and sisters laughed at me. My parents and grandmother applauded and told me I was wonderful. For years after seeing that movie I would lie awake nights remembering the story of the Sound Of Music and making up my own stories to go with it. Lying awake nights making up stories instead of sleeping is a habit I still have, as my husband can tell you.

My elementary school years were tough--I hated school. I wanted to be at home with my mother. I used to feel sick to my stomach every morning and my mother would let me stay home sometimes. We moved to Kentucky when I was in the fifth grade. I stayed home a lot that year and I missed so much school I had to repeat the grade to make up all the work I had missed. After that I didn't get sick to my stomach anymore.

I didn't do well in school until the sixth grade. That's the year I was given my first creative writing assignment. I had been writing stories at home for years and of course keeping a journal filled with more stories and poems and all those important thoughts I had. My homeroom/English teacher was very impressed by my writing and this made me feel smart. I decided to do well in school after that, and I did. But what if that teacher hadn't encouraged me?

When I was 13, my mother enrolled me in dance class. At first I felt like a big oaf--all the other kids were younger, or had been taking dance lessons for years, so I was behind. But I loved it, and I began to work at it all the time: stretching so I could do splits and high kicks and dancing around the house to music. Two years later I was invited to join the special master classes for the best students. All that hard work had paid off.

I loved dance--I continued lessons into high school, and then went to college and graduate school as a dance major. I went to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as an undergraduate, and went to Ohio State for my Masters degree.

So how did I end up as a writer?

I got married after Grad school and I soon realized that my dancing took up too much of the wrong time. When my husband was at work I was at home, and when he was home I was dancing. I didn't like that at all, even though my husband took a beginning ballet class just so he could spend time with me. I left dance and I decided to return to my first love, writing. Soon after that we adopted three children and I knew for sure that staying home and writing instead of dancing was the best decision for me.

As an adult I still love to spend time with my family and friends, and I love to read, run, hike, bike, swim, go to plays and concerts, travel, and of course, write.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book on what we all need to remember, May 19, 2000

By 

Melissa (MO, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I Should Die Before I Wake (Hardcover)

Han Nolan has written an amazing book on something that some people don't want to believe ever happened:the Holocaust.

16 year-old Hilary Burke-a Neo-Nazi- is injured terribly in a motorcycle accident. Her boyfriend, Brad, also a Neo-Nazi getting off with only a few scratches and bruises.

As she slips in and out of consciousness, she falls into the life of Chana, a jewish girl who is wrapped up in the times of the Holocaust. Her terrifying life as a young Jew helps her realize what she is doing(hanging Jews in trees and beating them up) is absolutely wrong.

When Hilary is telling the chapter, all she can see is a 'Grandmaw', the actual Chana. Chana helps her realize that what she is seeing is her life as a child. At the end of the book, Chana's only living relative, her sister Nadzia, comes to tell Hilary something that hurts them all...especially after what Hilary(Chana) has just been through in her dreams.

To find out more, I won't mess up this review and tell you what happens next. You have to read the book...

Recommended for: 13+

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My New Favorite Book, February 2, 2001

By 

Brandy (Madison,Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I Should Die Before I Wake (Paperback)

"If I Should Die Before I Wake" is now by far my favorite book. It is a sentimental story about a 16-year-old neo-nazi named Hilary and how her life crosses paths with the life of a young Jewish girl living in Europe during World War I named Chana. When Hilary gets in a car accident with her boyfriend Brad she finds herself in a coma at a Jewish hospital. As she struggles for her life she passes over from the views of her life to Chana's. As Chana, Hilary sees the many horrible and emotionally terrorizing things that the Nazis did to the Jews. Many of Chana's family members and friends are killed. This book gives a very descriptive, mind altering explanation of the concentration camps and the brutal deaths of the Jews. After seeing this Hilary realizes how wrong the Nazis were and changes her views about Jews. This book was very passionate and I recommend it for anyone who likes a good tearjerker because this book will definetly make you cry. Han Nolan did an excellent job of portraying the realities of the Holocaust.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for Younger Readers, November 29, 2003

By 

Leeann (Birmingham, MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I Should Die Before I Wake (Paperback)

I had some mixed feelings about this book. For one thing, I pretty much predicted the plot just from reading the back cover. Also, Nolan's language just didn't move me the way some authors can. That said, this is still an extraordinary book, and I know it would've amazed and inspired me had I read it at a younger age, back before I knew much about the Holocaust. So, if you are [or you know] a young adult reader with little knowledge of the Holocaust who might develop an interest in it, I'd certainly recommend this book.