Recommended Reading and Reviews

What's the book about?

This young adult novel was inspired by a true story. It focuses on the bond between three young friends and what happens when war and the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust separate them.

What did you like best?

This is a captivating novel about the Holocaust. It is intriguing to read the different perspectives of three young children put through unfathomable circumstances. This book had me feeling as though I was there, watching these characters, feeling what Max, Elsa and Leo all felt and seeing what they went through, at times all alone. 

What, if anything, did you not like?

There was nothing about the book itself that I disliked, however, reading it made me despise those responsible and made me hope for this awful period in history to never to be repeated.

Would you recommend this book? 

From what I know, I found the story to be historically accurate and I definitely learned more about what Jewish people went through during the Holocaust. It was an emotional roller-coaster, heart-wrenching but full of hope too. I’m very glad to have read it.

What is the book about?

This is a fiction book imagining Anne Frank’s life before she started keeping the diary.

What did you like best

I really liked everything because I recently read Anne Frank’s diary so it was interesting to find out more.

What, if anything, did you not like?

One part that made me feel quite sad was when Anne’s grandmother died.

Would you recommend this book?

I would recommend this book to people who liked Anne Frank’s diary or books about the past.

What's the book about?

This graphic novel is based on a true story from the author’s father’s life before and during WWII and the Holocaust. In ‘Maus’, all the characters are drawn as animals. The Nazis are cats and the Jews are mice. The book also follows the relationship between the writer, Art, and his father, Vladek Spiegelman. There’s 2 books which make up ‘The Complete Maus’ and this review is of book 1.

What did you like best?

I enjoyed seeing all the characters as animals and the obvious metaphors behind this design choice. I also found seeing how views about Jewish people changed particularly during the war. I found it inspiring to see the manner in which Jewish people in the book came together despite not knowing each other beforehand and before the war. 

What, if anything, did you not like?

I didn’t dislike anything about the book itself; however, I did dislike some of the information I learned. For example, about how young children were murdered in Auschwitz for crying. It was shocking to think this happened just to stop a minor inconvenience. 

Would you recommend this book?

I would definitely recommend this book – it is an inspiring story filled with different types of conflict. It shows the appalling actions of the Nazis and those who supported and helped them. It also shows the terrible cruelty Jewish people had to face during Hitler’s reign and how life could be very difficult afterwards as a result for survivors. The graphic novel is pitched as an adult one and is recommended for readers over 12.

Based on a true story from the author’s own family, albeit a fictionalised account, this graphic novel follows the life of Irmina, a young German woman who moves to London in 1934. There, she falls in love with Howard, one of the first black students to study at the University of Oxford, and she witnesses the casual racism he experiences. 

The political upheaval of the 1930s leads to Irmina returning home to Germany. When war breaks out and she cannot leave, we see her views on National Socialism begin to slowly change over time. Almost imperceptibly, she accepts what she perhaps would previously not have and Yelin, visually, tells the story of a normal young woman who becomes a bystander in Nazi Germany because it suits her.

As Irmina’s story unfolds, we see how such a change in a person can occur as well as what the repercussions are, over the course of a long life, of choosing such a way of being. The colour palette used by Yelin to represent Irmina’s life in Nazi Germany is mostly muted and grey, reflecting the shading perhaps of Irmina’s own decision making and moral choices and a life lived which could have been very different.

The author used her grandmother’s diary entries to write ‘Irmina’. It is suitable in terms of its content from S2 onwards, with no graphic images. However, it may not appear to younger readers simply because of its subject matter and the fact Irmina changes so slowly and is a bystander more than a central active character. 

It’s most suited to learners with an interest in historical graphic novels and/or educators. ‘Irmina’ can be read without prior background knowledge of Nazi Germany or events and circumstances leading to the Nazis’ rise to power, however, this would add to the reading experience.

The detailed afterword by Dr Alexander Korb, director of the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2012 to 2018), is useful in allowing the reader to further consider the complexity of the story around ideas of complicity and choices.