The Librarian of Auschwitz: Graphic Novel

I just finished reading the graphic novel version of the library in a Auschwitz. The Librarian of Auschwitz is a compelling story of 14-year-old Dita, a Jewish teen growing up in Czechoslovakia. During World War II the Nazis her rounded up her family and neighbors and forced them into a concentration camp.

Brave and compassionate, Dita risks taking care of and distributing a tiny cache of books to lend to her fellow prisoners. Reading is prohibited but it transports people from the atrocious situation they find themselves in.

One of the most intriguing parts of the story was the mystery of why the people at the first camp Dita and her parents are taken to were treated better than I expected. Dita and her parents were leery of why people I her side of the camp didn’t get their hair shaved off or why they were allowed to wear their own clothes when on the other side of the fence the prisoners wore striped uniforms and had no hair. It turned out Dita was in the portion of the camp that the Nazis showed human rights inspectors. When the tours were over, cruelty and dehumanization reigned with beatings, inhuman living conditions and for most people back breaking labor.

I recommend this compelling story with its fine illustrations and well crafted characters.

 

Lea Ypi’s Free

This was the best book I read in 2022.

Ruled Paper

In her memoir, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, Lea Ypi chronicles her childhood growing up when Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha was in power and through the era of Albania post-Hoxha. With wit and insight Ypi recounts how she trusted Hoxha like a grandpa while questioning her parents’ lack of enthusiasm for the government.

I was pulled in with her stories of her family obtaining and losing a prized possession, an empty Coke can, of how her family talked in code about neighbors and relatives who disappeared, of her best friend who ran off with a neighborhood tough guy.

The book continues through the 1990s when Albania transitioned to a free market economy when her mother got political, her father found himself working for a corporation and having to implement World Bank policies and when it seemed that everyone who could fled to Europe or North…

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At the Library

No Fixed Plans

At the library yesterday I overheard a rather loud conversation between two local people who’ve written a book and wanted the library to purchase a copy since they live in this town. The librarian at the desk congratulated them and went on to explain that the library will accept a donated copy of the book, but wouldn’t purchase it unless it had been recommended by a professional reviewer like Book List.

She went on to tell them how to get their self-published book reviewed and that the library buys about 3,000 books a month.

I was disappointed and a bit shocked that our hometown library wouldn’t support residents who’ve written a book by purchasing one. Instead it’ll take months to go through a lot of rigamarole. Clearly, not everyone in town publishes a book every month.

I think that unless the book costs over $100 or is absolutely full of…

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