Bild på författaren.

Elana K. Arnold

Författare till A Boy Called Bat

26 verk 2,699 medlemmar 111 recensioner

Om författaren

Inkluderar namnet: Elana K. Arnold

Serier

Verk av Elana K. Arnold

A Boy Called Bat (2018) 644 exemplar
Damsel (2018) 535 exemplar
Bat and the Waiting Game (2018) 280 exemplar
Red Hood (2020) 261 exemplar
Bat and the End of Everything (2019) 159 exemplar
What Girls Are Made of (2017) 144 exemplar
The Question of Miracles (2015) 83 exemplar
Sacred (2012) 72 exemplar
The House That Wasn't There (2021) 70 exemplar
What Riley Wore (2019) 70 exemplar
Infandous (2015) 67 exemplar
Burning (2013) 56 exemplar
Just Harriet (2022) 45 exemplar
Far from Fair (2016) 42 exemplar
An Ordinary Day (2020) 36 exemplar

Taggad

Allmänna fakta

Medlemmar

Recensioner

Set in Czernowitz, Romania, between fall 1939 and 1945, The Blood Years tells the story of a Jewish family in the vise of war, as their city is occupied first by the Russians, then by the Germans, then the Russians again. Rules become more and more restrictive, food and essentials become scarce, and danger is everywhere. Frederieke's family - her beloved grandfather, her prone-to-depression mama, her beautiful and stubborn older sister Astra, and her often absent father - are the core characters, and are based on real people, as are some of the secondary characters, such as dancer Ruth. Rieke comes down with tuberculosis, and Astra's doctor husband Marcel makes careful calculations about what care they can get her, and when; he also helps her escape from the hospital before it's cleared out by Nazis. Rieke is weak, but makes strong choices, and refuses to give in, and she survives the relentlessly grim years of terror and depredation and survives.

See also: The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh, I Will Betray You by Ruta Sepetys, The Girl Who Sang by Estelle Nadel

Quotes

"Rats are smart and fast, and they survive." (Astra, 30)

That's one of the many things Opa and I have in common, our love of routine. Our desire for things to stay the same. (31)

"Well, the future is uncertain for everyone - these days more than ever. Still, there are only two ways to go, Frederieke, in dance and in life. You choose your path, or it chooses you." (Madame Lucia, 68)

"Never pray for a new king." (Opa, 132)

I guess people can get used to almost everything... (138)

Have they always hated us this much, our Romanian neighbors? Or is hatred as easy to catch as a cold, as quick to spread as my own illness has, in my body? (221)

I know that I should be used to shifting borders at this point. But this fence...makes me feel both powerless and angry. That the rules can change so fast, that we have absolutely no control over what those rules will be, even though we're the chess pieces who are forced to move in step with them, who will live or die because of them. (270)

I want to believe what Opa told me...that our capacity to love is greater than their hate. But...is it? ...Their hate is enormous - as wide as the sky - but also so petty and small that it will go into the littlest room in a family's apartment, seek out the one scrap of delicate beauty, and destroy it. (286)

"Sometimes we choose between bad, and worse." (Astra, 312)
… (mer)
½
 
Flaggad
JennyArch | 1 annan recension | Mar 4, 2024 |
Kiki Karpovich, a brown-skinned, dark-haired girl, is lonely and wishes for friends. When she finds a goldfish in the street and rescues it to her bathtub, it grants her a wish - but it can only grant small wishes. No matter what wish Kiki thinks of, each one is too big for the fish - yet the fish seems to be growing, so Kiki begins digging a pond for it outside. And in the process, she loses her shyness and gains some friends.

See also: Anywhere Farm by Phyllis Root and G. Brian Karas

Author's note.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
JennyArch | Feb 12, 2024 |
First sentence: When we were very young, Astra and I made a pact. I was six; Astra, not quite ten. It was a sultry, miserable summer day. Father was missing--again--and Mama was in bed--still. Whenever Father disappeared, Mama disappeared, too. Not physically, but in every way that mattered.

Trigger warnings: I don't always give these. This one is HAUNTING. And not for the reasons you might think. I think sensitive readers should be warned. This one does describe--directly and indirectly--sexual abuse/assault. It also indirectly features ANIMAL ABUSE. Also plenty of death--murder and suicide.

Premise/plot: The Blood Years is historical fiction--young adult--set in Romania (what would be) during the Second World War. It provides a glimpse--vignette???--into Jewish life in Romania. How one didn't have to experience the full extent of Nazi hideousness to experience trauma and devastation. Though to be fair, Rieke (the protagonist) would probably have had a tough adolescence regardless of the Nazis and Soviets. I say this because her family is super-super dysfunctional. Also because I'm not sure you can blame the Nazis for her having tuberculosis.

Rieke and Astra live with their mother, Anna, (she is ever-absent mentally and emotionally) and grandfather (Opa). Anna has loved foolishly and recklessly. She is unable to live without her horrible, hideous, no-good, very bad husband. Astra, well, she seems to be mentally unstable as well. Very hot-cold. Very volatile and temperamental. One never knows what mood/temper she'll be in. If she'll be a fierce opponent and your number one enemy or your best friend. Opa is Opa is Opa. He's solid as a rock--except that he's older and not always in the best of health. Still he seems to have the most sense in the family.

The book chronicles the family's increasing misfortunes as their city experiences turmoil of falling under the control of Nazis, Soviets, Nazis, Soviets, etc. I may have the order wrong. The family suffered under all.

My thoughts: The book is based loosely on the author's grandmother. It is historical fiction. She was influenced by her grandmother's story, of course, but she was also influenced more compositely by many other stories. She wanted to be true to the time period and represent many experiences/voices.

This one is a TOUGH, haunting read. Astra and Rieke both experience trauma and abuse. Rieke is four years younger and is put into a GROOMING situation where abuse/assault happens. She is forced to make a HUGE decision.

s

p

o

i

l

e

r

a

l

e

r

t



What keeps me from recommending this one--personally recommending it--is the animal abuse. The family takes in a stray cat. They care for the cat as much as they can. The cat fends for itself, for the most part, but they have a loving relationship with this cat. When Rieke gets sick, the family feeds her a meaty soup, she then asks where the cat went. If it hadn't been so late in the book, I would have refused to finish it. Obviously, tough decisions would have been being made every single day during this time. I do think unless you are in the same place, it is not fair to be dogmatically critical and judgmental. Yet, at the same time, the book doesn't have to be that direct. It could have left a small unanswered question. It does in other places. For example, when Rieke goes to the hospital and the doctors deflate her lung, and, then she leaves the hospital in the middle of the night--despite her being on bed rest--because they've been tipped off that the Nazis will raid the hospital and kill all the patients--we never get closure on what happens to her lung. Does it ever get re-inflated? What about her tuberculosis? What happens next? She was so close to dying from the disease and the book ends, but, yet apparently lives long enough to have children and grandchildren.
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
blbooks | 1 annan recension | Jan 25, 2024 |
This was super cute. It's an Otter Award nominee, but probably too short and simple to win. A great series for 2nd graders and fans of [b:Meet Yasmin!|37865546|Meet Yasmin!|Saadia Faruqi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517017738l/37865546._SX50_.jpg|59572762] series.
 
Flaggad
LibrarianDest | 1 annan recension | Jan 3, 2024 |

Listor

Priser

Du skulle kanske också gilla

Associerade författare

Linda Davick Illustrator
A. N. Kang Illustrator
Doug Salati Illustrator

Statistik

Verk
26
Medlemmar
2,699
Popularitet
#9,516
Betyg
½ 3.7
Recensioner
111
ISBN
169
Språk
3

Tabeller & diagram