So.Much.Holocaust

– alligevel er White Bird en graphic novel for børn om Holocaust, som anmelderen Marjorie Ingall mener, at vi trænger til lige nu.

”There are books from Jewish publishers—books written by us and for us, often on a shoestring budget—that endeavor to tell a multitude of stories. But overall, jeez: SO. MUCH. HOLOCAUST.)
Now, though, I’m not so sure. Now that anti-Semitic hate crimes have suddenly skyrocketed. Now that I was distracted from Yom Kippur services by an unguarded side door, despite the bomb-sniffing dog, security personnel, and metal detectors in the front, even though I did not know at the time that there had already been a Yom Kippur shooting outside a different synagogue. Now that a 2018 study found that 22% of millennials have never even heard of the Holocaust. Now I must amend my statement: We need superlative Holocaust books. There is still no place for mediocre ones—if these were once a mere annoyance, they’re now an urgent problem. No more books that offer ahistorical feel-good fantasy or that destroy hope, no more books that get history wrong, no more books that focus obsessively on Anne Frank (just do Anne Frank the courtesy of reading her own book!), no more books that universalize entirely too much from our particular lived experience.

White Bird is the Holocaust book we need right now. It’s a graphic novel by R.J. Palacio, the author of the mega-bestseller (and movie) Wonder, and inked by cartoonist Kevin Czap. The publisher recommends White Bird for readers 8-12, but I wholeheartedly recommend it for young adult and grown-up readers, too, ”skriver Majorie Ingall.

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