Annexed by Sharon Dogar YP FIC DOGAR

Peter van Pels lies in a ‘hospital’ in a concentration camp designed to eliminate his people from the Earth. As he is ravaged by disease he remembers his terrifying and maddening ordeal of hiding two years in an attic growing from a boy into manhood stuck endlessly with his family and another: the Franks. As time goes on his loneliness and anger is softened by the optimism, hope, and gentle spirit of Anne Frank. You’ve heard her story, now see it gan through the eyes of the boy she loved.

This book, like Anne Frank Diary of a Young Girl (949.2 FRANK) is incredibly powerful, sad, nut ultimately uplifting. It is a fictional story based on real events so it is not the historical document that Anne Frank is, but it still has an impressive power and beauty like Anne Frank. My only criticism is that the story starts sort of slow, because Peter is very quiet and inward focused. However, this pays off because when Peter does slowly open himself up to romance with Anne it makes it all the more important and powerful. I urge anyone that hasn’t read Anne Frank to read it and when they are done to read Annexed. It really is a worthy companion piece and conveys the true horrors of genocide and the inspiring strength of a people that refused to be erased from history.The author has also included information at the end on what is fact and what is fictionalized and how she developed the fiction, which is very helpful for readers.

The Returners by Gemma Malley YP FIC MALLEY

Will doesn’t know if he has a future. His mom died when he was a boy and his father is a raging bigot that wants to keep England for the English. To make matter worse at night he has horrible dreams of death and carnage. Will just wants to be left alone and ignored. Unfortunately wherever he goes he is watched by strangers, all with the same sad, doomed eyes. No one believes him, and he isn’t sure what he believes himself, but then they make contact. They are the Returners, immortal souls that exist to witness the great atrocities of humanity, only to die horribly and be reborn just in time for new horrors. Will says he isn’t one of them, but how do they know about his nightmares of past genocides? As he runs from them and starts to question his reality he starts remembering things he had blacked out in his own life. And when he learns his destiny as a Returner is different than those who follow them he decides he will reject his fate, but can anyone escape fate? Or is history really doomed to repeat itself forever?

This is a dark and thrilling ride into the mind of a troubled teen with some pretty special problems. What works best about the story though is that many of Will’s problems are very real. His mother died in front of him at a young age, his bouts of rage scare and excite him, and his father’s bigotry repels him but also is somehow appealing. These are all things that happen in the world every day. It shows that history’s monsters and madmen were once just confused spiteful young men and women. It is a much more compelling view of how evil is born than most novels usually take. The novel is set only 7 years in the future in England and the idea that a recession in 2009 could lead to a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment is chillingly realistic. This is a scary and tense read that looks at how evil is formed and what can be done (if anything) to prevent it.

The Day of the Pelican by Katherine Paterson J FIC PATERSON

When Meli is 11 years old, she draws a funny picture of her teacher as a pelican, and is caught and kept after school. Her brother Mehmet, who is 13, usually walks home with her and her friend. Their father has told them to stay together, since all of their people (Albanians) have been targeted by the police. Mehmet walks home alone, since his father needs him to help at their store. The police take him and beat him and leave him for dead in the countryside outside their city. He is rescued by Albanian nationalists and after some weeks comes home.

This book tells about Kosovo, a region in the country of Serbia which has mostly people from Albania, a nearby country. Many of these people wanted their own country separate from Serbia. But Serbia resisted this and started a campaign of genocide in 1998 against the Albanians. We find out what’s happening from Meli and Mehmet, and travel with them and their family after they are driven from their homes. They go to the mountains and camp there, go to a refugee camp, and finally end up in the United States. Meli and Mehmet are very different. Meli is quiet and keeps things inside; Mehmet is full of anger for what happened to him and his people. Both the brother and sister stay in your mind after the book is finished.

Broken Memory: A Novel of Rwanda by Elisabeth Combres YP FIC COMBRES

A five year old girl named Emma hides behind the couch and listens helplessly as her mother is murdered. She survives by stifling her own screams and then hiding in bushes as she makes her way across war torn Rwanda, eventually being taken in by an old woman. Nine years pass and the war is long over, but Emma is still haunted by nightmares and cannot remember the past. It will take connecting with other survivors and learning to hope again for Emma to find her memory and start a new life.

Broken Memory takes place in Rwanda 9 years after the civil war in 1994. The novel does a great job of teaching about the conflict in a moving and interesting way. By focusing on one young girl and her perceptions it allows the reader to have a more direct involvement with this tragedy. The writing is very simple and stripped down which makes the descriptions of atrocities even more affecting, because they are described so naturally. This is an excellent story of one girl’s journey into hope and reaffirming life, but it also works as a symbol for Rwanda itself.