#mapping the bones

[tinynavajoreads]

Black Book Stack

I finally got to go through my books to find what ones I had for a black book stack! And October is a good month for it! And I've actually read 7 out of the 10 books in this stack, which is quite good for me!

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (not read yet)

Arrival by Red Chiang

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen (not read yet)

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Emma by Jane Austen

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (not read yet)

Twilight Zone edited by Carol Serling

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

I also know that a lot of people have done their Black Book Stacks already so I'll just leave it here for others to look through!

Which of these have you read? What did you think of them?

[penguinteen]

Do you have any WWI/WWII books that you could recommend, after reading Salt to the Sea I'm obsessed with historical fiction🙌🏼

Oh man we’ve got some good ones! 

The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen 

This award-winning novel about a young Jewish girl who finds herself transported back in time to the middle of the Holocaust is a can’t miss read full of emotion, horror, heart, and power. Jane Yolen is a master storyteller who handles history with a deft hand. Her newest book, Mapping the Bones, is also set during the Holocaust, and will be in stores next March. 

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

If you loved Salt to the Sea you’ll also love Ruta Sepetys other WWII book, Between Shades of Gray about a young girl and her family as they are sent to a prison camp in Siberia after Soviet forces invade her Lithuanian village. Full of heart, hope, and tears, this is one book you’ll never forget. 

Flygirl by Sheri L. Smith 

All Ida Mae Jones wants to do is fly, but as a young black woman in 1940s Louisiana, she knows she can’t... that is until America enters World War II, and the Army forms the WASP - Women Airforce Service Pilots. Ida uses her light skin to pass as a white, but struggles with the internal repercussions of her actions. Moving, hopeful, and self affirming this is one you don’t want to miss! 

Looking for more great historical reads? Check out these great picks! 

[tinytermite]

poem

“Such an ordinary sight, thirteen people walk by, hardly giving her a glance as if she were a rabbit dead in a field, or an old dog who died by the fire. Just another piece of drek on the cobbles to be taken away by the garbage collector. Three hundred calories a day, such rations could not sustain a growing child, so she stopped growing. Her feet, her legs, her face stiff and cold like pavement, and as gray. This child who once danced about in her mother’s kitchen, a bit of afikomen in her hand, the four questions so lately in her mouth. Dance, little Hannahleh, Chaya, Gittel, Rachael. Whatever your name was when you were alive, dance on the streets of Heaven, for you shall never dance here again.”

written by Jane Yolen, in her book: Mapping the Bones

[historical-mg-ya]

Could it be that humans had an infinite capacity to make themselves at home in the direst of situations? Or did one just adjust expectations downward, so as to be able to get through each day?

Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen

[teencenterspl]

Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen

What’s it about: It’s 1942 in Poland, and the world is coming to pieces. At least that’s how it seems to Chaim and Gittel, twins whose lives feel like a fairy tale torn apart, with evil witches, forbidden forests, and dangerous ovens looming on the horizon. But in all darkness there is light, and the twins find it through Chaim’s poetry and the love they have for each other. Like the bright flame of a Yahrzeit candle, his words become a beacon of memory so that the children and grandchildren of survivors will never forget the atrocities that happened during the Holocaust.

Andrea’s thoughts: I read and loved Jane Yolen’s book Briar Rose, a Sleeping Beauty retelling set during the Holocaust.  When I saw this book, a Hansel and Gretel retelling also set during the Holocaust, I knew that I had to read it.  Suspenseful, hopeful, and tragic are just some of the words that I would use to describe this book.  Chaim and Gittel’s journey from a Polish Ghetto through the forest with Polish resistance fighters to finally be caught and sent to a Nazi labor camp was, at times, hard to read.  The book switches back and forth between Chaim’s perspective at the time of the event and Gittel’s recollection as a grown woman.  Chaim’s poetry is also dispersed throughout the book as he takes on the responsibility of bearing witness to the struggles and atrocities he and others face.  The parallels between this story and Hansel and Gretel is very subtle at first but become more obvious as the story settles at the Nazi labor camp.  This was a beautifully written book that, although fiction, could be based on the real stories of millions of people.  I would recommend this book to fans of historical fiction and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

[mobilepubliclibraryteens]

The year is 1942, and Chaim and Gittel, Polish twins, are forced from their beautiful home and made to live in the Lodz Ghetto. Their family's cramped quarters are awful, but when even those dire circumstances become too dangerous, their parents decide to make for the nearby Lagiewniki Forest, where partisan fighters are trying to shepherd Jews to freedom in Russia. The partisans take Chaim and Gittel, with promises that their parents will catch up -- but soon, everything goes wrong. Their small band of fighters is caught and killed. Chaim, Gittel, and their two friends are left alive, only to be sent off to Sobanek concentration camp. Chaim is quiet, a poet, and the twins often communicate through wordless exchanges of shared looks and their own invented sign language. But when they reach Sobanek, with its squalid conditions, rampant disease, and a building with a belching chimney that everyone is scared to so much as look at, the bond between Chaim and Gittel, once a source of strength, becomes a burden. For there is a doctor there looking to experiment on twins, and what he has in store for them is a horror they dare not imagine.