Reviews and Honors
Behind
the Bedroom Wall
Jane Addams Peace Award Honor Book
Milkweek
Prize for Children's Literature
From
readers
A
great book
Reviewer: An 11-year old reader from Mission. TX USA
This is one of the best books I have ever read. From the second I started I
couldn't put it down. You feel like you're actually in the story. It also gives
a great perspective on what life was like during the Holocaust. I recommend it
for everyone!
Excellent
Historical Fiction
Reviewer: A reader from Minnesota, USA
This is a wonderful book containing both a great storyline and insightful
information about German children in World War II. I would recommend it to
anyone who enjoys suspense, mystery and history.
From Horn Book
...the
novel gives fearful insight into the ways young minds can be molded to hate. It
also offers a glimmer of hope that, in the darkest of times, there are some
brave people who will risk their own lives to help others.
From
Kirkus Reviews
A
loyal member of Hitler's Jungm„del has some choices to make when she discovers
that her parents are hiding a Jewish family. Having uncritically accepted the
pervading anti-Semitism and faithfully parroted its slogans, Korinna, 11, is
horrified when her wardrobe swings back to reveal Sophie Krugmann and Rachel,
her 5-year-old daughter, in a secret room. Does Korinna believe in the party
line strongly enough to turn in her own mother and father? In the agony of
indecision, Korinna skips school, loses sleep, and arouses the suspicions of her
best friend, Rita, whose brother is a Gestapo agent; meanwhile, reluctantly
succumbing to Rachel's charms and thinking about how Jews and anyone who
associates with them are being brutalized, her attitudes begin to change.
Williams (The Long Silk Strand, 1995, etc.) has her young characters obediently
repeating patriotic Nazi slogans and promises, but presents counterarguments
more subtly, by simply showing the Gestapo's cruelty, Sophie's bitterness and
exhaustion, Rachel's fear, and the general climate of repression. In the end,
Rita betrays Korinna, but then warns her of the impending raid; the Krugmanns
are spirited away just in time, and Korinna's family must also go into hiding.
Confusingly, Williams's suggestion in the afterword that freedom may be more
important than love isn't a theme she develops in the story, but she pays
stirring tribute to the courage and ingenuity some outwardly ordinary people
showed in those dark days. With scattered, stiff b&w illustrations.
(Fiction. 10-13) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights
reserved.