The Harmonica

"Torn from his home and parents in Poland during World War II, a young Jewish boy starving in a concentration camp finds hope in playing Schubert on his harmonica, even when the commandant orders him to play.

Very realistically written. Delt with death and loss of family.

This is a well written book about a boy's journey. He had a wonderful family until the Nazis arrived at his home and he became imprisoned and kept away from his family. His harmonica kept him personally attached to the memories of his family but also caught the attention of the commander who had

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him play daily. Although his harmonica playing kept him alive and fed an extra bread he was ashamed, that is until he was told his playing gave hope to the other prisoners in earshot. The book just ended, like I fell off a cliff!! The author provided extra details in a back page story so we know he survived the holocaust. The book was engrossing and really draws you in to the story. I would use this book to discuss the Holocaust, surviving troubles, strength, having hope, turning misfortune and despair into hope. I would use this book for grades 3-8 b/c of the strong emotions and war topics.

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This book was written in beautiful language. It almost brought me to tears. This would be a great book to read aloud and use expression while reading it. I think it would be a great way to educate students about the Holocaust from a different perspective then historical fact books. I love that this

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book was written to keep one man's story going. Its based on a true story.

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When Tony Johnston wrote The Harmonica, he wanted children to be educated on the the Holocaust in a way that they would understand it. He based the book on a real story of a boy and his parents and their love of music. When his dad gives him a harmonica, he learns to play Shubert for his family to

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enjoy. After the Nazi troops take his family, he is separated from them and placed in a concentration camp. He is sad because he doesn't know if his family is dead or alive, so he plays his harmonica to think about when times were happy. When the commandant learns of his talent, he makes him play for him and gives him bread in return. This makes the boy feel guilty since other prisoners are starving to death. However, the prisoners thank him for the beautiful music he gives them each night.
This book brought tears to my eyes. Anytime a disasterous situation is seen through a child's eyes it is harder to deal with. The fact that it is based on a true story makes it even more heart-wrenching.
I would read this book when introducing children to the Holocaust. It could also be used when discussing respect for other people and their religions.

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A young Jewish boy lives with his family in Poland during the time of Hitler. They are poor but love to hear music, especially that of a man named, Schubert. The boy's father gives him a harmonica and he learns to play Schubert. The Nazis find the family and split them up in different concentration

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camps. The boy is treated poorly by German soldiers, but one soldier finds him one night and orders him to play Schubert on his harmonica. The boy feels badly for doing this for the soldier until he realizes he is also blessing the other prisoners.
This would be an excellent discussion book for students studying WWII. The students would be able to see the war from the perspective of someone their own age. This book could be used to begin research about the lives of Jews during this terrible period of history. Student could also look up Schubert and see where he was from and how he affected the lives of those who heard his music.

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This is a very well written book that would be great for upper elementary students. It touches on a dark subject. The nazi war. It was about a boy and his Harmonica and how a guard loves for the young boy to play for him and in return the guard gives him some bread to eat.

A Jewish boy gets separated from his family during the Holocaust and is placed in a concentration camp. He received a harmonica from his father before he was separated from his family and plays it every night to help remember them. The main commander hears the boy playing Schubert, which happens to

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be his favorite music, at night and commands the boy play for him every night. After he is done playing for the commander, the commander throws he scraps of food. One night one of the boys in the barracks tells him thank you for playing, it is then that he realizes he is providing hope and joy to those around him.
The holocaust has always fascinated me because I am a little bit Jewish and my Grandpa served in during the war and has told me stories about the concentration camps he saw. I love reading and hearing stories about this particular time in history.
An activity to use with this book would be to have the students give ways in which they could provide hope and joy to those in a bad situation. This book could also be a great way to introduce to the Holocaust subject to students and have an open discussion about their thoughts and feelings about what happened during the Holocaust.

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A lovely picture book with haunting illustrations. It's not graphic, but because of the subject matter, I'm not sure it would be good for young children, and older children probably would not want to read a picture book. So I'm not sure what the target audience would be. But it is a good depiction

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of one boy's journey through the Holocaust.

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The Harmonica was a sad story about a Jewish family that was torn apart by the holocaust and to be honest I had a hard to finding the big picture or theme, in the end I decided to go it, family can be lost but never forgotten. I enjoyed the story mostly because it pushes the reader to learn about

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the holocaust and read about some of the awful things that happened. One major part that the book allows children to experience is the separation of a child from his parents. This is a very tough situation to read about as an adult let alone to hear about as a child. Another part of this book I enjoyed were the illustrations, the images are based very much on color to show emotion of the situation. In the beginning the boy and his family are singing and dancing together and the picture is very warm colors earthy tones, but when the Nazi's come in and take his parents the image is drawn with cool colors and very dark tones. This connection allows for children to not only hear about the emotions but also see them. The plot of this story was very well done as well with a short start up talking about how happy they were and how close the family was, to the transition to the conflict with the Nazi's. All the way to the concentration camps and they suffer and pain he endured in the camp to his release and freedom by the US army. This standard plot gives great story line for the children allowing them to connect and learn with the story.

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I could have sworn that I'd read this book before. Who knows? Anyway, this story of a boy who plays Schubert with his harmonica during the Holocaust is tough and touching. It's a nice book that's not going to avoid tugging at your heart a bit. It would be tough to explain the horror of the

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Holocaust, but I feel like this book at least gives you some stepping stones that might guide you to opening up a dialogue. Just be sensitive, as with any book on this topic.

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The Harmonica, written by Tony Johnston and illustrated by Ron Mazellan is a 2004 Charlesbridge published Historical fiction about a Jewish boy in a concentration camp with his harmonica. The book although a great read, was emotionally difficult to read. The Holocaust is not an easy subject to read

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about whether it is a child’s picture book or an adult chapter book. I think that the author did a great job with building a relationship with the main family, showing their love, then tearing them apart by putting them in concentration camps. The author shows how horrible concentration camps were by explaining the deplorable living conditions. Besides the emotional struggles with the book, I found that the illustrations, writing and plot were very well thought out and organized.
The author did a wonderful job with the illustrations. Not only do they enhance the story with how they are presented, the author did a great job categorizing the pictures into before and after categories. Before the concentration camps the pictures are very bright, warming, and inviting. After the move to the camps the pictures change to a dark and cold color that shows despair seeping out of the boy’s heart. A picture that really catches my eye is when the boy is playing the harmonica for the leader of the concentration camp. The boy is in front of a pale white background. The Commander is in front of a blood red background with a bowl of bread that looks like it is floating in blood. The Commander is flanked by his two attack dogs and he is holding a whip. This picture portrays the Nazi Commander as a blood thirsty villain who will punish others if his demands are not meet. This is just one example of the multiple times when the author uses his illustrations to have a symbol behind them.
The writing in this story kept me involved in it and left me wondering what would happen next. I felt as though the writing was descriptive, very organized, and flowed very well. There is a part in the story when the boy is playing his harmonica, the writing describes that his fingers were so cold that they felt as if they were going to fall off. That they ached with so much pain he could almost not bare it. The writing is so organized that I could easily follow it back to the beginning of the story. It follows itself very well and helped to keep me engaged in the story. The writing seemed to almost come off the page and easily into my mind.
The plot was very well designed and full of suspense and conflict. The boy loved playing his harmonica in front of his parents and then the prisoners of the camp. However, he felt a great deal of conflict when he was summoned to play in front of the Commander. He said that he felt sick playing for the Commander that he could not believe that he could play for a man that bought so much evil to his people. This creates a great deal of conflict in the story that keeps it alive and moving. Because this is a Holocaust book, suspense is present throughout the book. The whole time I found myself thinking thoughts like: Will the boy die? Will he find his parents? Are they still alive? This book kept me on my seat reading to find what would happen next just by the suspense alone.
Family, racism, hope, and inner strength are all themes that are present in this story. The boy must hold his family close in his heart to make sure that he is not swallowed up by the concentration camp. His family keeps him alive and playing the harmonica through the camp. Racism is a minor theme in this story. The Commanders racism and hatred toward the boy and his people keeps the boy playing the harmonica out of spite. The hate that the boy feels for the commander keeps him playing through the story. Hope is one of the biggest allies that we can have in our darkest times. Hope helps the boy to play his harmonica in front of the most evil man he knows. That hope is the distant hope of his freedom. The boy shows a lot of inner strength through this story. He shows strength when he is separated from his family, when he plays for the people in the camp, and when he plays in front of the Commander. This inner strength keeps him alive and keeps his happiness intact.

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In this story, a young, Jewish boy is separated from his parents when they are sent to two separate concentration camps in Germany. His only belonging, a harmonica, keeps him alive throughout his time in the concentration camp because he plays music for the Nazi soldiers. I absolutely loved this

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book and especially admired the illustrations. The color schemes go from warm hues to colder tones as the story goes from a happy place when the boy was with his family at their home to sad and dark times in the concentration camp. This form of symbolism really stood out to me. The harmonica stood as a staple of hope for the young boy and I thought it was incredibly heroic for him to stand so tall, brave, and most of all, positive in such a horrific and tragic time. It was truly uplifting to read that such a young boy was able to be so positive, especially reading that this was a true story. The main message in this story is to do your best to be brave and courageous, even in the absolute worst of times.

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The Harmonica is a harsh tale of a orphan boy who lived through the nazi takeover. He is passionate about music, in-particularly his harmonica. I liked this book for 3 reasons. One reason is that the author pushes the reader outside of their comfort zone by describing the cruelty that innocent

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children had to endure. For example, when the boy is placed in a nazi camp he acknowledges the strong possibility that his parents are dead. While imprisoned a solider says, "Play Jew!" even though he despises the idea of bringing joy to such an evil person, he does anyway because he was very hungry and he would be rewarded with bread.
Another reason why I liked this book is for the illustrations that enhanced the overall story. The colors depicted the mood. For example, when the boy was happy, dancing with his parents, the colors were warm and bright. When the boy was in the camp, the colors were cold and dark.
Lastly I enjoyed the message of this book. The boy was stronger than the circumstances he was put in. He said that he thought of his family and other people in general when he played music. He only wished to be happy and make others happy too.

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I had mixed feelings about this book after reading it. I liked how the story was written in the point of view of the little boy. It provides an interesting perspective of Nazi inhabited Poland during WWII. I also liked that before the Nazi soldiers were introduced in the story, the boy's parents

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were well-developed and described. This makes it a little easier to swallow the difficult plot that comes next. I did not really like the illustrations because they were dark and undefined. However, I feel that they did enhance the story in a way that might not frighten a child. In the end of the story, the boy discovers that while he is forced to play his harmonica for the Nazi guards, he is bringing joy to other prisoners like himself. I believe that the big message is that we should try to find the good in everything we do.

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I liked this book for many reasons. First, it was inspired by a true story of a man who was taken to a concentration camp where he survived due to his playing of his harmonica. The language is very descriptive and poetic. The writing is organized well, and well paced. No details appear to be

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missing from beginning to end, I felt as though I was being provided with all the information necessary throughout the story.The book is written in simple sentences but the word choices accurately get the emotion and messages across. The point of view was in that of the child who was taken from his family and brought to the concentration camp. I felt well connected to the character and felt sorry for the hardships he had to go through in order to survive this ordeal. The illustrations were beautiful and enhanced the story with darker colors used throughout the illustrations to set the mood. This book pushes readers to thing about hardships and that hope and helping others get through hardships can help you get through difficulties. The main message of this story is that there is always hope in dark times.

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There were several reasons I really enjoyed reading this book. I thought the illustrations were powerful in exploiting the truth of what concentration camps were like so that students can have a better understanding. We see a perspective of the war through a child's eyes and how they dealt with

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their time in the concentration camps. This particular story tells how the beauty of music connects and saves us all. I really enjoyed how the main character was able to soften the hearts of some of the camp leaders as well as bring a form of peace to the other prisoners. In a time of great horror and distress, there was still a sense of hope among those being persecuted. Having the perspective of a young boy allowed the readers a look at an innocent point of view. His view of the concentration camps may be wildly different from that of an adult and we are able to see how a child felt throughout those hard times. I think students in middle school would really benefit from reading this book as it helps them understand history while still giving them an enjoyable story for them to read.

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This sincere picture book tells the same type of story as Arthur Miller's screenplay "Playing for Time" in which a person is in the compromising position of playing music for their persecutor (a moral dilemma). It kept them alive but full of guilt. This one has poignant illustrations and

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beautifully descriptive images in words. This is one of the better picture books about the holocaust--it doesn't hold back or trivialize feelings or events. I recommend it middle school teachers, for sure.

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