Almost Autumn

By: Marianne Kaurin
Location:Fic Kau
Genre: Historical Fiction -Holocaust

I love the fact that this holocaust book has a bright cherry cover!!!! But then your eyes go down the page and there it is,,,,
I am thinking about book content a lot lately and some of it perturbs me, I am in this quandary - do I speak up, remain silent, act, do nothing- what is my  active response to what I feel to be something that is wrong... I guess also for now we look at our world and I wonder what kind of courage would I have, or not....

It’s October 1942, in Oslo, Norway. Fifteen-year-old Ilse Stern is waiting to meet boy-next-door Hermann Rod for their first date. She was beginning to think he’d never ask her; she’s had a crush on him for as long as she can remember.

But Hermann won’t be able to make it tonight. What Ilse doesn’t know is that Hermann is secretly working in the Resistance, helping Norwegian Jews flee the country to escape the Nazis. The work is exhausting and unpredictable, full of late nights and code words and lies to Hermann’s parents, to his boss…to Ilse.

"..And as life under German occupation becomes even more difficult, particularly for Jewish families like the Sterns, the choices made become more important by the hour: To speak up or to look away? To stay or to flee? To act now or wait one more day?
I think that is why this book has so much impact--because it mirrors so perfectly the quietness with which the Holocaust crept into people's lives and the maddening silence that characterized those who let it happen." Rachel