▼

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

My Top Tens: Holocaust Books


I've been thinking about all the wonderful books about the Holocaust and how powerful they are. Some of my all time favorites fall in this category despite the heavy subject. Here's ten of them:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. Night by Elie Wiesel
3. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
4. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
5. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
6. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
7. The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig
8. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (this is one I have yet to read, but high up on the my list)
9. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
10. Virgil and Beatrice by Yann Martell: not because it's a favorite, but because it stands out as one of the strangest books and most shocking books I've ever read on this subject!

What are some of your favorites in this genre?
at

12 comments:

  1. Jacinda (The Reading Housewives)July 6, 2011 at 4:46 AM

    I loved The Book Thief and Name the Stars! :) And of course I read Anne Frank sometime back in school :) I think those 3 are the only books I've read that take place during the Holocaust...at least from what I can remember.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ibeeegJuly 6, 2011 at 5:53 AM

    holy mother of word, you've got to be kidding me... The Book Thief is set during the holocaust?? i am planning on reading this book during august. why am I so shocked? well it seems that my concentrated historical fiction reading has changed from 1700s to the 1940s and not by purposeful intent but by randomness of books that i am choosing to read based on mood...recommendations...read along...just because... my last few choices have been set during world war II (did not know the setting before starting to read). nothing wrong with this time period; i love it, actually. besides the 1700s, i would say the late 30s through 40s is my next favorite time period with the civil war ear the third.

    by the way, i love night by elie wiesel. i should re-read that book this summer.

    also, you should read sarah's key; a fabulous book. loved that one too. read it in 2010 (winter).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mel uJuly 6, 2011 at 5:54 AM

    A young adult book set in the Warsaw Ghetto-Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli is one of my favorite books in this area-it is told from the point of view of a young mentally disabled orphaned boy during the years of The Nazi occupation of Warsaw-I also liked the Book Thief and Numbering the Stars a lot-I will look at some of the other books on your great list

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 6, 2011 at 6:13 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJuly 6, 2011 at 6:20 AM

    (Okay, let me try this again. There seemed to be a glitch with my first attempt.)
    I love your list, Suey! Some of my favorites not on your list:
    Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
    The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
    The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
    When Hiltler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
    The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

    ReplyDelete
  6. TheBookGirlJuly 6, 2011 at 7:13 AM

    The Book Thief is one the few books that has ever made me sob out loud...so good, but so sad.

    Two others that I liked very much,
    The Boy by Daniel Porat and Sophie's Choice by William Styron.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Melissa (Avid Reader)July 6, 2011 at 12:06 PM

    Great list, The Book Thief is one of my all-time favorites. I agree with mouseprints too, Briar Rose is so good.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Heather J. @ TLC Book ToursJuly 6, 2011 at 2:34 PM

    I'm reading a WWII/Holocaust memoir right now called WALTZING WITH THE ENEMY. It might not make my favorites list but it is definitely good - each chapter is a vignette of sorts, and some of them will stick with me for a very long time.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AlohaJuly 6, 2011 at 10:02 PM

    I have read all but # 5 and #10 I shall have to get those!

    ReplyDelete
  10. KailanaJuly 7, 2011 at 10:46 AM

    I keep saying it, but I REALLY need to read The Book Thief...

    ReplyDelete
  11. krisJuly 16, 2011 at 12:53 AM

    Night by Elie Wiesel is a very intense and very good book.
    I also recommend:
    I Was Doctor Mengele's Assistant - The memoirs of Jewish physician, former prisoner of Auschwitz, who lived and worked at crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz. He was eyewitness of mass murders, who every day contacted and spoke to SS killers, and knew the most important camp secrets.
    Halina Birenbaum. Hope is the Last to Die - Born in Warsaw, Halina Birenbaum has lived in Israel since 1947. She is a writer, poet, and translator. She was ten years old when the war began. She lived through the Warsaw ghetto and the camps at Majdanek, Birkenau, Ravensbrück, and Neustadt-Glewe, where she was liberated in 1945. Her memoirs, which she was prompted to write by the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, are shocking, authentic, and candid.

    ReplyDelete
  12. SarahMay 22, 2013 at 12:19 AM

    Alicia: My Story - by Alicia Appleman-Jurman

    I read it in the 7th grade along with the rest of my class and actually wept in class, right in front of all my peers, it was so moving. The book is quite long yet quite fast and you won't be able to put it down.

    Take my advice- read this one next.

    ReplyDelete