The Keeper of Hidden Books
Zofia Nowak and her friends love to read, but in Warsaw in August 1939, reading is becoming a radical activity. With a Nazi invasion imminent, Zofia and her friends scramble to read as many Hitler-banned books as they can before they’re confiscated. When the inevitable invasion arrives, Zofia and her father hide banned books beneath the floorboards in their apartment, hoping to preserve them for a time when Poland might be free again. But when her father, a physician, is dragged off to prison along with so many of Warsaw’s intellectual elite and her best friend, Janina, is confined to the Jewish ghetto, Zofia realizes she must join the resistance against the Nazis.
As the Nazis seek to control the Polish people by controlling the ideas they have access to, Zofia and a few other librarians find stealthy ways to continue getting books into hands and education into minds. As the crackdown against the Jewish people intensifies, Zofia puts her new skills to work squirreling away not only banned books but also Jews she’s helped smuggle out of the ghetto.
Martin has penned a novel that is both heartbreaking and timely. Through Zofia’s eyes, readers experience the agonizing separation of families at the hands of the Nazis and the anger that so many Poles had to tamp down in order to survive. Martin captures the fear that so many families must have felt as friends and neighbors disappeared and there was no way to know who might be next. And through it all, Zofia recognizes the hope and love her beloved stash of hidden books represents and understands that love is precisely why Hitler wanted the books stamped out. Because, as Zofia reflects, “Books inspired free thought and empathy, an overall understanding and acceptance of everyone.” Highly recommended.
