December Book

SO. Friends. My theme is "Books Whose Story Took Place Around the Time of World War Two."

First option: The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman
I was just given this book by a friend, but no one I know has read it yet. I have LOVED everything I've read by Diane Ackerman (and I've read like five of her books).

Here's a review:

Starred Review. Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses) tells the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds. Using Antonina's diaries, other contemporary sources and her own research in Poland, Ackerman takes us into the Warsaw ghetto and the 1943 Jewish uprising and also describes the Poles' revolt against the Nazi occupiers in 1944. She introduces us to such varied figures as Lutz Heck, the duplicitous head of the Berlin zoo; Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, spiritual head of the ghetto; and the leaders of Zegota, the Polish organization that rescued Jews. Ackerman reveals other rescuers, like Dr. Mada Walter, who helped many Jews pass, giving lessons on how to appear Aryan and not attract notice. Ackerman's writing is viscerally evocative, as in her description of the effects of the German bombing of the zoo area: ...the sky broke open and whistling fire hurtled down, cages exploded, moats rained upward, iron bars squealed as they wrenched apart. This suspenseful beautifully crafted story deserves a wide readership.

Second option: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows.
Here's a review written by a friend of mine

Third option: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Here's a review, written by a different friend of mine, I've wanted to read it for a while now, but haven't yet.

Please do read those reviews to get an idea of what the book is about - I just don't want to steal off of their blog (of course, taking a review from Amazon doesn't bother me, hee hee). Scroll down to find the poll and vote :)

December Book What should we read for our December meeting? The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne View Result free polls

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