Playing for the Commandant
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4.4 • 54개의 평가
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- US$12.99
출판사 설명
"Look after each other . . . and get home safe. And when you do, tell everyone what you saw and what they did to us." These are Hanna’s father’s parting words to her and her sister when their family is separated at the gates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Her father’s words — and a black C-sharp piano key hidden away in the folds of her dress — are all that she has left to remind her of life before. Before, Hanna was going to be a famous concert pianist. She was going to wear her yellow dress to a dance. And she was going to dance with a boy. But then the Nazis came. Now it is up to Hanna to do all she can to keep her mother and sister alive, even if that means playing piano for the commandant and his guests. Staying alive isn’t supposed to include falling in love with the commandant’s son. But Karl Jager is beautiful, and his aloofness belies a secret. And war makes you do dangerous things.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The world of 15-year-old Hanna Mendel a Jewish Hungarian concert pianist in training who longs to follow in the footsteps of her idol, Clara Schumann turns menacing when Hungary falls to Germany in 1944. New laws require Jews there to wear yellow stars on their clothes and live in ghettos, and, before long, she, along with many others, is sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Zail, whose memoir The Tattooed Flower recounted how her father survived the Holocaust, poignantly conveys Hanna's mounting losses at first, her home, piano, suitcase, and clothes; then, when men are separated from women in the camp, her father; and even her hair and her name. Strengthened by Erika, her spirited sister, Hanna holds onto her one remaining possession: a black C-sharp piano key, and the hope it represents. Although she witnesses much cruelty and degradation, Hanna also discovers courage, integrity, and ingenuity in surprising ways; in particular, through Karl, the quiet, musical son of the cruel commandant for whom Hanna plays piano, who calls her "by my name, not my number." An elegant, disturbing portrait of one of history's bleakest moments, offset by the subversive power of love. Ages 12 up.
사용자 리뷰
Cried many times
Wish there was a more definitive ending with the romance part
I really love this book
It's so heartbreaking and yet, captivating. A story about a strong and brave girl determined to survive the horrible war with her pianist hands. You won't regret reading this.