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A review by readsewknit
The Sound of Freedom by Kathy Kacer
3.0
In The Sound of Freedom, we learn of Anna, a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Krakow, Poland, as Hitler is in power in Germany and Nazism is spreading throughout Europe. She lives with her widowed father and her grandmother.
Anna witnesses changes in her city: classmates singling out Jews to harass, her musician father sitting in the "ghetto seats" off to the side from the rest of the orchestra, the Jewish shopkeeper having his business vandalized and he himself is later beaten while others just watch and cheer.
As she wrestles and tries to come to terms with these developments, when cruelty can be done but the law is silent, Anna learns of a famous violinist coming to Poland to recruit musicians for a new orchestra in Palestine. He is singling out Jews in order to rescue them, as legitimate travel papers are harder and harder to come by.
The themes of security and what really matters as far as your location are discussed, as in one such instance in chapter 8:
"'What is a home?' Baba asked. 'Isn't it just a place where you feel safe?'"
There are some stressful moments of uncertainty as Anna and her family are waiting to relocate, and then we witness what it is like to call a new, foreign place home; not all can make the adjustment and choose familiarity over safety.
This book is based on factual events. I envision this being a helpful introduction for middle-school students, as they will empathize with what it must be like to say goodbye to friends and start over in a place where the language is unfamiliar and difficult to grasp. I can remember when I was teaching watching 14-year-old students encounter a novel depicting events in the Middle East; they were unfamiliar geographically with the setting, but the teenager's experiences drew them in and captivated them, allowing the students to fully engage with the historical lessons they did in their social studies class in a way they couldn't have before.
I appreciated this story, but I admit the execution had me longing for a little more finesse -- the information is clearly conveyed and will help facilitate learning and conversations, but I wanted to be transported away, yet it never drew me in completely.
Anna witnesses changes in her city: classmates singling out Jews to harass, her musician father sitting in the "ghetto seats" off to the side from the rest of the orchestra, the Jewish shopkeeper having his business vandalized and he himself is later beaten while others just watch and cheer.
As she wrestles and tries to come to terms with these developments, when cruelty can be done but the law is silent, Anna learns of a famous violinist coming to Poland to recruit musicians for a new orchestra in Palestine. He is singling out Jews in order to rescue them, as legitimate travel papers are harder and harder to come by.
The themes of security and what really matters as far as your location are discussed, as in one such instance in chapter 8:
"'What is a home?' Baba asked. 'Isn't it just a place where you feel safe?'"
There are some stressful moments of uncertainty as Anna and her family are waiting to relocate, and then we witness what it is like to call a new, foreign place home; not all can make the adjustment and choose familiarity over safety.
This book is based on factual events. I envision this being a helpful introduction for middle-school students, as they will empathize with what it must be like to say goodbye to friends and start over in a place where the language is unfamiliar and difficult to grasp. I can remember when I was teaching watching 14-year-old students encounter a novel depicting events in the Middle East; they were unfamiliar geographically with the setting, but the teenager's experiences drew them in and captivated them, allowing the students to fully engage with the historical lessons they did in their social studies class in a way they couldn't have before.
I appreciated this story, but I admit the execution had me longing for a little more finesse -- the information is clearly conveyed and will help facilitate learning and conversations, but I wanted to be transported away, yet it never drew me in completely.