The moving story of a young girl who learns her grandfather's experience in Auschwitz and then helps him overcome his sensitivity about the number on his arm, this award-winning picture book gives young children just enough information about the Holocaust without overwhelming them.
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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4 A loving relationship between a young girl and her grandfather is por trayed in text and black-and-white pho tographs. When the girl notices a num ber tattooed on her grandfather's arm, her grandfather tells her of the atroc ities committed by the Nazis against the Jews, even describing Auschwitz, the camp he was in. ``We were no longer people to them. We were numbers.'' Moved, the young girl comforts her grandfather. The deceptively simple vocabulary does not limit the dignity of the text. Because of the subject matter, this would work best when presented by an adult with preparatory and fol low-up discussion, but it offers just enough information and emotion for primary grade children to handle. That this really happened to a beloved grand father makes the horror more immedi ate and realistic, and offers a different approach than the more allegorical one taken in Promise of a New Spring (Ros sell, 1981) by Gerda Klein. Adler has succeeded admirably in his attempt to explain the inexplicable. An important book for everyone concerned with hu man rights. Micki S. Nevett, Temple Beth Emeth Library, Albany, N.Y.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
I write both fiction and non-fiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later. Of course, since I'll be spending a lot of time with each main character, why not have him or her be someone I like? Andy Russell is based, loosely, on a beloved member of my family. He's fun to write about and the boy who inspired the character is even more fun to know. Cam Jansen is based even more loosely on a classmate of mine in the first grade whom we all envied because we thought he had a photographic memory. Now, especially when my children remind me of some promise they said I made, I really envy Cam's amazing memory. I have really enjoyed writing about Cam Jansen and her many adventures. For my books of non-fiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. My first biography was Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir. To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedia. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there. I've written many other biographies, including books about Martin Luther King, Jr; George Washington; Abraham Lincoln; Helen Keller; Harriet Tubman; Anne Frank; and many others in my Picture Book Biography series. I've been a Yankee and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades so I wrote Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man. It's more the story of his great courage than his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig. I am working now on another book about a courageous man, Janusz Korczak. My book One Yellow Daffodil is fiction, too, but it's based on scores of interviews I did with Holocaust survivors for my books We Remember the Holocaust, Child of the Warsaw Ghetto, The Number on My Grandfather's Arm, and Hiding from the Nazis. The stories I heard were compelling. One Yellow Daffodil is both a look to the past and to the future, and expresses my belief in the great spirit and strength of our children. I love math and was a math teacher for many years, so it was fun for me to write several math books including Fraction Fun, Calculator Riddles, and Shape Up! Fun with Triangles and Other Polygons. In my office I have this sign, "Don't Think. Just Write!" and that's how I work. I try not to worry about each word, even each sentence or paragraph. For me stories evolve. Writing is a process. I rewrite each sentence, each manuscript, many times. And I work with my editors. I look forward to their suggestions, their help in the almost endless rewrite process. Well, it's time to get back to dreaming, and to writing, my dream of a job. David A. Adler is the author of more than 175 children's books, including the Young Cam Jansen series. He lives in Woodmere, New York.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An important, personal story,
By
This review is from: The Number on My Grandfather's Arm (Paperback)
In "The Number on My Grandfather's Arm" a young girl tells the story of her grandfather. He's a quiet, thoughtful man, and obviously kind, but he has the strange habit of always wearing a long sleeved shirt, even during the heat of the summer. One night when her parents go out for the evening and grandpa is washing up the dishes, the girl notices a large set of numbers tattooed on his forearm. When she asks him what they are, he quickly covers the numbers up. "It's time you told her", the girl's mother says, coming into the kitchen. Grandpa leads her to the living room and carefully begins to tell her the story of where those numbers came from. He explains about Hitler: "he was a wild man. He waved his arms and shouted about the Jews. And, when he shouted, thousands of people shouted, too." He tells her how the Jews were beaten, sometimes killed, forced to wear yellow stars, and-- most monstrous of all-- how they were shipped off to concentration camps and labled as "enemies of the state." With tears in his eyes, he tells her how the Jews were often tortured, beaten or killed. "'I was one of the lucky ones,' Grandpa said. `I survived.'" In the end, the little girl tells her grandfather that it is the Nazis who should be ashamed of what happened, not him, and he re-rolls his sleeves up to go back and take care of those dinner dishes. "The Number on My Grandfather's Arm" is a powerful story, made all the more so because it is illustrated with B&W photographs not only of the girl and her grandfather, but of Hitler and of the persecuted Jews. One very powerful photo is of a disheveled, clearly hungry man with his fingers laced through a chain-link fence and a yellow star sewn to his jacket. For an adult, it is a haunting image and for a child I imagine it would provoke many questions. The book is short and sparsely illustrated, but will undoubtedly pose many questions for the young reader than it will answer, chief among them "how did this happen?" (a question a good many scholars and academics are STILL asking today). Mr. Adler does not answer this Big Question for us, presumably leaving it up to the parents/families of the reader to explain in their own way man's cruelty to other men and how an atrocity like the Holocaust could happen in the first place. The history of the persecution of the Jews and WWII is very short and simplified in this short book, but this is to be expected considering that the book is written for very young children. If I have any criticism about the book it is with the illustrations. For a work of this magnitude-- that is, one that will inevitably ask more questions than it answers and is clearly about the Big Issues-- I would have expected more photographs and for them to be in color. The story, while well written, seems much more sparse and almost dated by the use of the B&W photos. Still, it's an important work and one that is highly recommended for sparking discussion about this terrible and pivotal period in world history.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must-have for Libraries,
By AMGrumm (Suburbia, New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Number on My Grandfather's Arm (Paperback)
A grandfather responds to a young girl's inquiry about the number that is tatooed on his forearm. Includes actual black and white photos from the Jewish Holocaust. Get your hands on an earlier edition, if possible !!! This new edition has been censored. The editors removed an extremely provocative photo that added to the impact of the story : A Nazi soldier pointing his rifle at an anguished young woman clutching her baby !!! We shelve this book in the Non-fiction with other Holocaust materials. It is NOT intended for "Picture Books." An example of the typical underestimation of kids' intelligence.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Emotional Story from a Holocaust Victim,
By
This review is from: The Number on My Grandfather's Arm (Paperback)
I used this story in my classroom to introduce the Holocaust. It was hard to get through because I got so emotional when I read it. It really is a strong, emotional story. It is a great story to use for introducing students to the Holocaust.
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