Fritz and Kurt

Product Information

Author Luke Palmer introduces his new book, Play (Firefly Press) about four boys growing up together, the challenges, the friendships, and what hap... He got food from civilians and shared it with his friends, and then was able to convince civilians to bring guns into the camp,” says Kurt. “Eventually, he survived by swapping identities with a dead man. Some of these stories are almost incomprehensible to me.” Survival in Vienna Easy four stars for the young readers' version of "The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz" - with some extra material not included in the first variant as it didn't surface in time. It's certainly not flawless, but whatever impact the older read had on the markets, this doesn't deserve any less - it will certainly tell about the War and the Holocaust with more clarity than a whole shelf of coursebooks.

Julia’s review of Fritz and Kurt - Goodreads

In 1946 the near unthinkable happened when Kurt was told, via telegram, that his brother and father were alive. By then an American soldier, he was able to visit them in Vienna when he was stationed in Europe. Still, it wasn't as smooth a reunion he might have hoped for. He had lost most of his German, while his family had little English. While trying to get an academic career in archaeology off the ground, he began dabbling in writing fiction – a pursuit he’d ...

This book didn’t try to have a unique twist on the war or tell a story that hasn’t been told before because both Fritz and Kurt’s stories have been told very similarly before it just tried to tell the stories it was telling as well as it could and that it did. It was simple sand powerful and meaningful because of that. Throughout the book as well it showed different things that could have happened to Jews during this time, so you had some that managed to escape and become refugees, some that were killed or sent to ghettos and died as well as some being sent to concentration camps that proves the point that not everyone was sent to a concentration camp and that other things did happen to these people. In 1938, the Nazis come to Vienna. They despise everyone who is not an Ayran, which meant foreigners, people of colour, traveller folk, gay people and anyone who had different beliefs, especially Jews. Fritz and Kurt’s family are Jews, which puts them in great danger. Ultimately, if this book's older relative did for its target audience what this has the ability to do for its own, it's easy to see why the first book was such a success. (And I can't ignore the mention late on of facts that came to light after the first book was presented.) I wish this a similar impact, and I'm grateful for the publishers sending me a review copy. A strong four stars, if not more, from me. Hitler and the Nazis marched into Austria with very little opposition. Any that they encountered was swiftly put down. We see how daily life altered rapidly for the brothers who lived with their parents and two sisters. Friends soon became informants to the Nazis. Avenues were sought to send the children to safety but it came too late for Fritz.

Book review: Fritz and Kurt - A moving Shoah book for older

I love how the characters evolve throughout and never lose hope of freedom. Illustrations peppered throughout the book bring the story to life. This story has been written for younger readers to help them understand what life was like for Jewish people during the holocaust. Due to its nature, this book would be better suited to upper KS2 and would support the teaching of WWII well. The author has exercised care and sensitivity in catering to a younger audience whilst instilling an awareness of the living nightmare that Jewish people suffered during the holocaust. The story begins in Vienna just before the German invasion, and soon takes young Kurt out of the country, alone, to America. With only a few chapters of his story once he reaches a new home, it mainly then pushes the reader on to concentration camps with the older Fritz and his father, arrested for nothing more than their Judaism. It explains well what the Nazis thought of Jews, and allows readers to see for themselves the inhumanity inflicted on so many. The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer. It certainly opened my eyes, just months after John Boyne did an adults-only sequel to his different covers for different ages The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, to see this be a junior rewrite of a mass market adult Holocaust book. I was left with the feeling this felt the need to be more educational than the adult equivalent. I also was left with the feeling that, in being so repetitive, the author did not have a firm grasp on his target audience's intelligence before he started. But I may have been wrong in seeing that as an issue.Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks. Home >