T4

September 1, 2008
Gr 6 Up-Thirteen-year-old Paula Becker is Deaf during a time when people with disabilities are ordered to be killed in Hitler's Tiergartenstrasse 4, T4. Through the help of a priest, she is hidden on the farm of a retired teacher and, when almost discovered, is moved to a homeless shelter in a church until she can return home. Telling her story through first-person free-verse poems, she draws readers into her world, sharing her fear, desperation, and uncertainty as she struggles to survive. Even though this is a short and quick read, this novel will have a lasting effect on readers, giving insight into an often-forgotten aspect of the horrors of the Third Reich. The unique writing style makes this a good choice for reluctant as well as proficient readers."Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2008
Grades 6-9 Raised in a loving family in Nazi Germany, Paula, a deaf 13-year-old, learns about Hitlers Action T4 program, which dictates that doctors euthanize the mentally ill and the disabled as unfit to live. After her disability marks her as a target, Paula narrowly escapes a Gestapo raid and hides in a church shelter. Among the large number of youth books about the Holocaust, very few have addressed this atrocity beyond the statistics (about 275,000 disabled were killed). In her powerful debut novel, LeZotte, who is deaf, tells the story from the viewpoint of one young girl, who speaks in spare, lyrical, intense free verse that blends her personal experience with the historical facts and an additional adult perspective that looks back. Paula befriends (and later marries) a young Gypsy boy, and their reunion, which closes the book, is a bit too upbeat. Paula is surrounded by victims (I realized / I wasnt the only one / who was hated.), and final notes fill in the facts about the millions who did not survive. An important addition to the Holocaust curriculum.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2009
This harrowing free-verse novel tells of a deaf teenager's coming-of-age in Nazi Germany. Paula survives "Action T4" (an order to kill "useless eaters": people with disabilities). However, she comes away knowing, "that feeling--that we had escaped when others equally / Important had died--would never subside." Sentences are short and terse, but heartrending details woven into the narrative will give readers pause.

(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)