Morris GleitzmanBesprekingen

The war is over, and 14-year-old Felix, Gabriek, and 16-year-old Anya are on their way back to Gabriek’s farm to make a new home. Things don’t work out as planned, though, and soon Felix is making plans for a new home in Australia. Maybe things will be better there. Felix must keep looking over his shoulder for the murderous gangster, Zliv, who blames Felix for his brother’s death and is determined to make him pay.

I’ve grown to love Felix over the first six books in this series. He is a survivor, but not in a selfish way. Felix has a gift for friendship, and he surrounds himself with others who need his help who can also help him. This book is a reminder that, for many, suffering and hardship didn’t end with the defeat of the Nazis. Felix and his friends are better off than when they started, but they still have more challenges ahead of them. I look forward to reading the final book in the series to see what a new life in Australia has in store for Felix.

This book was a good read. I think there are a few politicians who need to be checking out the YA section of their local bookshop for this.

Holocaust

Holocaust

Holocaust

Good.

Representation: N/A?
Trigger warnings: Death of parents, gun violence, blood depiction, antisemitism, World War Two, near-death experiences, fire
Note that I got this book and now I own it. This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

7/10, so this is the first book of a seven-book series and initially I had no idea of what this book was going to be but other people have enjoyed this and seeing this classified as a war book I knew it was going to hit hard like a truck, and overall I did like the execution and how the author could do so much in not a lot of pages which is impressive. Where do I begin? It starts with the main character Felix and he lives in a Catholic orphanage with other orphans like him and some other orphaned characters however for some reason he believes that his parents are still out there somewhere and they will come back but other children come to that orphanage since their parents died somehow so that was an interesting plot point I guess. And he's Jewish and given the circumstances like the year 1942 it's just a horrible time to live in and it's even worse for him only due to his religion which was disheartening but all too real but at least I liked how every chapter started with the word Once hence the title. That's an intriguing stylistic choice I suppose. Only a few pages later he starts on his journey by first escaping from the orphanage most likely to find his parents, did I mention that I liked Felix as a character since at the start he tells many stories to hide the truth however as I move on this isn't the case. Partway through that he meets another character named Zelda who must've been a victim of an attack that happened recently in her neighbourhood since her house was burned down for some reason and soon enough they get along even though their character dynamic is not perfect I'm sure that choice made the book more realistic in a way. The ending is only ok since there was one action scene but the book was a difficult read and the final pages were just weaker than the rest. Wow. I will surely read the next six books in the series and they might be as good as the first.

I enjoyed this entire series. This is a fitting end to it. We find Felix's past and present reconnecting through a young boy named Wassim. Felix, in helping Wassim, realizes that even though he has always held out hope for mankind to be better than they were when he was a child, witnessing the atrocities of the Holocaust, there is still so much hatred and prejudice in the world. But maybe he can help change Wassim's life a bit. This is a series I have not only recommended to my students, daughter and granddaughter, but one I will read from beginning to end this coming school year. Why? Since I have all of them I want to read straight through. This is one roller coaster of a ride series. I definitely recommend it to everyone.

The war is over, but you wouldn’t know it from the situation in Poland. 13-year-old Jewish Felix is still with Gabriek, the Polish man who hid Felix in his barn for two years. They live in a partially destroyed building and use Gabriek’s carpentry and mechanical skills and Felix’s medical skills to trade for food and other items. Felix’s life is in danger after he crosses a Polish nationalist. Felix and Gabriek might just survive with the help of Anya, a girl about Felix’s age.

In some ways this is the most difficult book yet in this series, even though Felix has survived the Holocaust. Although the war has ended, the violence driven by ethnic hatred continues in Poland. Felix rescues a Ukrainian baby from certain death at the hands of Polish nationalists, only to see the baby drown days later as Felix and Anya are driven into the river by a murderous mob. Will Felix ever find a home where he won’t have to live in fear for his life?½

Una vez supe que mi abuelo Félix tuvo una infancia terrible. Entonces descubrí lo que los nazis le hicieron a su mejor amiga Zelda. Ahora entiendo por qué Félix hace las cosas que hace. Al menos me tiene a mí. Yo también me llamo Zelda. Esta es nuestra historia.

Félix y Zelda vuelven a ser los protagonistas de esta experiencia, en la que dos niños intentan escapar de la persecución nazi y se enfrentan al odio de sus enemigos pero también encuentran la amistad y la generosidad más desinteresada.

Félix tiene diez años, es judío, y vive en un orfanato esperando el día en el que sus padres vuelvan a buscarlo. Es el único niño que no es huérfano, o eso es lo que tendrá que descubrir, porque los nazis irrumpen en Polonia, y persiguen y matan a los judíos. Inconsciente del riesgo, Félix se escapa para buscar a sus padres. Quizá consiga sobrevivir y encontrarles, quizá le ocurra algo bueno en su vida, al menos una vez.

This is a good one for fans of Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It also made me think of that movie, Life is Beautiful.

I never much liked Jennings and Gleitzman books. They were super popular with my classmates but I always just found them creepy.

Dawn and Rory hate each other. Unfortunately for them their parents, Jack (Dawn's dad) and Eileen (Rory's mum) are getting married. But they have to work together to save their parents when Rory finds his pets, the slobberers, are killing machines, sucking the life from anything they come into contact with and he put some in their honeymoon stew as a protest against their marriage.

This wasn't well written. All the characters are flat and there's a ton of backstory but all of which is lacking explanation. Dawn's mum apparently killed herself. On a bus. While other people were on it - one of whom was Rory. Rory's dad left his mum and him and never calls or writes or visits. There was no depth to the characters and every fact just brought up more questions.

And frankly I just didn't care. It was creepy and disgusting and I just wanted it to be over. 1 star.

This book was so great! It's the best book in the whole series, in my opinion. I wish the books got better after this one, but sadly they don't.

I read "Once", "Then", and "Now", and they were terrific. "After" was ok, but "Soon" was really bad. I had to push my way through most of it since I was not too fond of the idea of abandoning this series since it had a great start. This book was a little boring, and the story was starting to get unrealistic. Sadly, "Maybe" is so bad that I had to stop reading it, though I'm thinking of forcing myself to reread it since Morris made another one. Also, this guy doesn't put details in his books, at least not in this series. Part of my dislike of the last two books was because I read "Projekt 1065", which is one-hundred per cent better than "Soon" and "Maybe" combined. I think Morris really dragged this series on too long and came up with a sloppy story for why Felix is living in Australia as a retired surgeon in "Now", even though we didn't need to know how he got there, especially since "Now" is written in his grandaughter, Zelda's point of view instead of his.

As the next chapter in his story unfolds, Felix has been hiding for 2 ½ years in a hole in the horse’s stall in Gabriek’s barn. It’s Felix’s thirteenth birthday, and everything changes. When he hears Gabriek arguing with several strangers in the barn above him, Felix secretly follows the group when they leave. They appear to have kidnapped Gabriek, and Felix is determined to help him. As it turns out, the strangers are Polish partisans fighting against the Nazis. Felix must join the partisans in order to survive.

The author originally intended for this series to be a trilogy, but he discovered that Felix had more to say. I realized this when I reached the end of Then, and I’m glad the author listened to Felix. As a reader, I longed to know what happened After. How did Felix survive? What happened to his parents? This book answered many of my questions.

While I’ve read many Holocaust memoirs and biographies, I seldom read Holocaust fiction. It’s hard for me to shake the feeling that the author is manipulating my emotions. I don’t get that feeling from this series. The things that happen to Felix and Felix’s actions and reactions are consistent with the memoirs and histories I’ve read.½

In this third and final book of a series (Once and Then), Felix is a grandfather and respected member of the community. Painful childhood memories that he had buried, resurface when his granddaughter Zelda comes to stay, and together they must face a cataclysmic event.

This book is based on the holocaust and the aftermath specifically for Felix who is a young Jewish boy living in an orphanage. Felix has a love for books and struggles when the Nazi's come and take the books he had access to. He ends up running away from the orphanage that he has been at for three years and helps a girl who's parents had been killed. This book gives a great perspective for kids on what life was like for young children during the Holocaust but would be better for older students rather than young ones as the author does not tip toe around the incidents that occured.

Colin's little brother is dying of cancer, and his parents send him from their home in Australia to stay with his aunt and uncle in London while they deal with..."things." But Colin, who has long been jealous of the attention his brother gets, is determined to turn the tables and get the appreciation from his parents he thinks he deserves: he formulates a plan to see the queen about borrowing her Top Doctor to save his brother's life.
I spent the first part of the book borderline-annoyed at Colin's attitude, and most of the rest of it worried that it was going to turn too sad and sappy. But, in the end, everything evens out, and although it *is* quite sad, it never turns maudlin or saccharine, but instead transforms into a perfectly balanced story of love and grief as experienced in childhood and beyond.

MG doesn't hold back from the harder issues, but he handles them so well for his audience. Tissues at the ready for this one.

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The third book in Felix’s story finds Felix a retired doctor in Australia providing a home for his 11-year-old granddaughter. Zelda is named for Felix’s childhood friend who was his companion in hiding from the Nazis. Granddaughter Zelda is being bullied by older girls at her new school, but she is reluctant to confide in her grandfather. When disaster strikes, their shared danger and their love for each other bring grandfather and granddaughter even closer together.

Readers learn that Felix still has a caring nature, which he expressed through a successful career as a pediatric surgeon. He saved the lives of hundreds of children during his career. I just wish readers were told more about how Felix got from German-occupied Poland to caring for a grandchild. Who did he marry? How did he meet her? What kind of relationship does he have with his child? Originally this book was to have concluded a trilogy, but it seems that Felix had more to say and Gleitzman has obliged him.

In the previous book in this series Felix once again helps a young girl. Anya was a girl he met after saving a baby. He meets Anya who promises him a way to get powdered milk. Felix learned that the reason Anya was always sick was because she was pregnant. They went back to Gabriek’s farm to learn someone else had taken possession. In town a mob attacks them, a Aussie is injured when he saves him, then needs Felix’s help to save his life with his medical knowledge. It is decided that Felix will become the face of all that Australia fought for in World War II. He is loaded on a plane leaving Gabriek behind. Unbeknownst to the pilot, Anya has hidden away on board as well. Up to this point the tension has been a rollercoaster ride. Then the plane is going down. Felix and Anya must jump for their lives. This is their welcome to Australia. I still love this series because I can see how we are coming full circle in Felix’s life. There were so many unanswered questions for me, that make me want to dive into the next and last book in this series.

Soon is the fifth book in this series. The war has ended. Hatred and prejudice seem to have no end. There are those who are still Nazi sympathizers. Those who think the Jews are still filthy beasts. Felix rescues a baby when the mother thrusts it at him before she is killed. He decides he a Gabriek will raise it. They give it a Ukranian name to hopefully protect it. Gabriek has been so traumatized that he drinks himself to sleep each night. This leaves Felix to go out and find food and work. He meets several young people that will change his life in many ways. This is one of the darker books in the series. I felt this because you would think things would start to change and have a brighter outcome after the defeat of the Nazis. However, as an American who was born well after this war, I never had to face a time when a country had to rebuild itself. It is hard enough to rebuild after a war. Bring into it the same old prejudices by just a handful of people and the outcome is the same for a while. Change takes time. Unfortunately for some, time runs out.