Once
This novel is about a young Jewish boy growing up in the 1930s in a Catholic orphanage in the German mountains. This boy has two secrets: one is that his parents are both alive, and two is that he’s Jewish (which the other children don’t know). His parents told him when they left him that they were going to find more books, as they owned a bookshop, and they promised him that one day they would send him a message when they would collect him. The young boy, Felix, thought that he’d got the message because a whole carrot was in his soup, so he decided to leave the orphanage in search of his parents. But little did he know of the terror in the outside world, the Nazi control, and the constant danger. On his journey he meets several different people, including Zelda, who he saved from a house fire, a German soldier with toothache, and Barney the Dentist.
I thought that this book was a thoroughly enjoyable read; I’ve read some of Morris Gleitzman’s more popular books in the past such as Worry Warts and Puppy Fat. This book isn’t like the other Morris Gleitzman books I know, but I do think that it is a fantastic book for children to read and learn about the 2nd World War and a different insight into life as a Jew in Nazi Germany.
