Customer Reviews

The Shadow Children

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I selected this book based on the artwork inside. The charcoal drawings are atmospheric and moody. The proportion of the adults give them a doll like quality. The drawings are mostly left unfinished to add mystery to them.

The book starts out slow, and somewhat choppy to read. The plot and characters are deliberately vague, and I struggled a little with the French names. It gets better as the book goes on and reveals its mysteries.

At one point I began to worry that it would turn into a typical ghost story. But the ghosts in this story are metaphors for real regret and wanting to change decisions made in the past.

There are moments in the book that may be disturbing for young readers. Books dealing with the holocaust always are. I would suggest this book for secondary students reading about the holocaust.

Etienne has been journeying up from the busy life in the city of France to the deep country on the base of Mont Brulant to spend the summers with his Grand-pere for as long as he can remember. He loves to spend time on the farm not only enjoying nature, but taking care of the sheep and chickens and harvesting the crops and pears. However, this time is different; this is the first time he is going alone, without his family. Etienne and his Grand-pere are enjoying their stay together until Etienne begins seeing starving children dressed in rags begging him for food. He seems to be the only one seeing them. Whenever Etienne mentions it to his Grand-pere, he becomes angry and tries to change the subject. There is something that his Grand-pere isn't telling him; he needs to find out. One day, Etienne takes a ride to the foot of Mont Brulant, and something very peculiar happens. As he ventures into a clearing of trees he sees a road that seems to lead to nowhere and various items belonging to children; a bracelet, a pen, a pocketknife. Etienne keeps on hearing and seeing the children that only seem to appear in the shadows. Are they real? Are they ghosts? Etienne knows that there is something wrong with the little town! What is it? Finally, Etienne forces out of his Grand-pere the history of the little village in the county. World War II had not been an ordinary war; it had not only been fought between soldiers, innocent people had been killed and persucuted. The children had been sent away to this town in hope that they might be able to hide. For a while, the people of the village hid them, but too many came. When the Nazis threatened to kill those hiding Jews, the people gave them away. They watched them herd them into cattle cars killing those who protested. The people tried to forget, but the souls of the children killed in the concentration camps haunted them. We must never forget. Never forget. The Shadow Children, by Steven Schnur, had a very powerful plot. It is filled with scary scenes of ghosts of dead children haunting the forests, and the dark past of the townspeople's history with the Holocaust. Altough the protagonist was a non-Jew, he still felt the pain and anguish as any relative of a victim in the Haloucast. The Shadow Children showed me how important it is to remember the Holocaust. In the Torah it says, "Remember what Amalek did to you!" The Nazis, the people who killed the millions of innocent children, are Amalek. We must remember! This novella is based on a true story; until the protagonist visited his grandfathers house in Germany, he had no idea what had happened to the Jews in World War II. I think that all children should read this book and see how important it is to remember. Again, Never FORGET!

The shadow children is a good book to read Etiennes grandma dies Etienne goes to his grandpas farm to help harvest the pears and to ship them in. Etienne finds items from years ago and he starts to see ghosts one is name Isaac he helps feed the children and they tell him what happened to them years ago but if you want to find out more you are going have to read this book to see.
My opinion is that I think the thing that happened years ago should present that it tells you what happened through Isaacss eyes and how he helped the children to get food and try to get toys for them to play with. But the thing that I liked about the story is that Etienne finds out what happened and how it all flows together

11 year old Etienne visits his grandfather ,and his grandfather's farm in France for the summer. Etienne goes to France on a train .He meet his grandfather and gets in his grandfather's wagon. On the way to the farm him and his grandfather see a little girl holding a baby and a younger boy. As they passed by, the children stick there hands out asking for food. Etienne and his grandfather could tell that they were homeless and poor by the rags that they had on.Etiennie and his grandfather rode right past them.From then on Etiennie's grandfather warned him not to go near the children again, but Etienne didn't listen . Etienne find that they were forgot children of the world war ll and they were ghost . Etienne soon went home and his frandfather died.

Etienne goes to a French city named Mont Brulant as he does every year for the summer. He vists Grand-pere's farm a little outside of Mont Brulant. He vists the woods and finds all kinds of clues to shw children were there. A long time ago children were taken away in those same woods on a special train once they entered the train they became slaves. One day Etienne sees the children hiding inn shadows. He thinks they are real but what he doesn't know is that the children are gosts. Read this book to find out more about The Shadow Children.

The book, The Summer of the Swans, written by Betsy Byars is a very interesting book to experience.It instantly grabbed my attention, from beginning to end. I love this book, and if you read it, I'm sure you'll love this book too.

The Summer of the Swans takes place in West Virginia. This book is mostly about a boy named Charlie and his sister Sara. Charlie Godfrey is a ten year old boy that is mentally challenged. Sara Godfrey, on the other hand, is about thirteen years old, and she is a teenage drama queen. She is going through a time of life that she thinks she's the ugliest person in the world because she compares herself with her sister Wanda Godfrey. Wanda is described as a beautiful nineteen year old with a boyfriend named Frank. One day Charlie was going to sleep and he heard a sound outside. He went to the window and saw something white and he thought it was a swan. So he got up and went outside and saw the white figure moving away. Charlie decided to go down to the pond and see the swans. He walked down the side of the road and saw that the field he was passing looked like the one he had crossed with Sara earlier in the day to get to the pond. Charlie started walking in the field. Pretty soon he got to the woods. He started walking into the woods, but there was no clearing where he thought the pond was. Read this book to find more about Charlie and Sara's adventure.

The lesson of this book is, don't judge a book by its cover. In the story Sara judges a boy named Joe Melby because she thinks he stole Charlie's watch. But really he gave it back to Charlie. Sara comes to find out that Joe Melby is really a caring guy because he asked if he could help find Charlie. Sara said that she didn't need his help, but Joe Melby helped her find him anyway. This is why I think this book is a great book to read. Read this book to find out more about Sara's journey to find Charlie.