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Fantasy. Historical Fiction. Young Adult Fiction. HTML: Winner of the National Book Award: In the shadow of the Holocaust, a young girl discovers the power of magic In the schoolroom of a simple European village, Kicsi spends her days dreaming of the lands beyond the mountains: Paris and New York, Arabia and Shanghai. When the local rabbi curses Kicsi's school for teaching lessons in Hebrew, the holy tongue, the possibility of adventure seems further away than ever. But when a mysterious stranger appears telling stories of far-off lands, Kicsi feels the world within her grasp. His name is Vörös, and he is a magician's assistant who seems to have powers all his own. There is darkness growing at the edge of the village�??a darkness far blacker than any rabbi's curse. Vörös warns of the Nazi threat, but only Kicsi hears what he says. As evil consumes a continent, Vörös will teach Kicsi that sometimes the magician's greatest trick is… (more)
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Some vivid moments -- the dream of the man with no teeth, for example...
4.12.07
I had never heard of this book before I saw it on NetGalley. It won the National Book Award and Open Road Media is now publishing it in ebook format. I love reading books that take place in WWII and I can't really remember
I love that this book included pronunciations of certain character names. My pronunciations would have been way off without it and it made reading this book easier as I didn't have to stumble over the names. As far as the characters themselves are concerned there was one that really stuck out for me and that was Vörös. I liked him throughout the book and was constantly curious about him (almost as curious as Kicsi was in the beginning). There were times when I felt so bad for Kicsi but there weren't many times when I really liked her that much. Her personality went from one extreme in the beginning to another towards the end. Her journey was heartbreaking but I didn't really manage to connect with her the way that I connected with Vörös.
I liked that this book had a great balance between the fantasy aspects and the horrors that are WWII. I was definitely interested in reading about both and was glad to see that neither of them really hogged the storyline from the other. I would definitely recommend this book if you want to read about WWII but like some fantasy as well. Thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Media for the galley.
The pacing in this is very uneven. It seems the author has spent a lot more time on the first third of the book than the rest, and more time on the middle part than the final third.