Saved. Check Saved Reviews
279 pp.
| Candlewick
| September, 2018
|
Trade
ISBN 978-1-5362-0104-8
$17.99
(
4)
YA
Naive Ella works in a sewing workshop at "Birchwood," the English name for Birkenau (the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in fact had a workshop of just this kind). Ella develops a close friendship with Rose (with undertones of sexual attraction). Characterization and imagery are among the novel's strengths, though some readers may object to its simplifying and decontextualizing events in the name of "show[ing] universal experiences."