Once by Morris Gleitzman

The book that I read is Once by Morris Gleitzman. The story is about a Jewish orphan named Felix, who seeks the find his parents during the Holocaust. He makes up great adventures on his way about how his mother and father travel around the world to try and saved all the books created by Jewish authors. Little does he know what really is going on. On his way to finding his parents he meets a little girl named Zelda, and shortly after they travel together to find her parents too, even though Felix knows something about Zelda’s parents and doesn’t want to tell because it’ll break her heart. After traveling with Zelda, they get caught by Nazi soldiers and are forced to march with them but a brave man named Barney comes and rescues them. After they are rescued from being killed Barney takes them to his house, where there are five more little kids. Three girls and two boys, one of the girls is Ruth and the other is Chaya. The boy’s names are Jacob and Moshe, the third girl, a toddler, is named is Janek. As the time spent with Barney and the others Felix, encounters many situations such as telling stories to a Nazi soldier who gets his teeth fixed by Barney.

What I liked about the book the most is the creativity.  The author made Felix’s stories in a way that I can actually picture being one of the little kids and how hard it was to stay quiet so that Nazi soldiers wouldn’t find you. The bad part about this book was that when the author had you on suspense he didn’t really capitalize on it more in the next chapter. He transitions into a whole different story, that Felix was telling. I also liked that each chapter started with once as if Felix was telling stories throughout the quest to find his parents. This story reminds me of the little girl in the red coat in Schindlers list because throughout the whole story Felix would come by Nazi soldiers and they would just let him wonder on. As if he was invisible.

Overall, the book was really good and it made you keep reading, to see what would happen to Felix (for example, is he going to survive or is he going get caught and brought to a camp where he will die?). I recommend this book to people who like non-fiction books and who are interested in the Holocaust and how some of the Jewish families or people survived without being caught. The age group for this book would be from 12-15 years old because around that age group you start to learn about the Holocaust. I would rate this book 3 stars, because someone the events in the story aren’t that realistic and can’t compare to the Holocaust as much.