Download PDF Someday We Will Fly Audible Audio Edition Rachel Dewoskin Jayne Entwistle Listening Library Books
Download As PDF : Someday We Will Fly Audible Audio Edition Rachel Dewoskin Jayne Entwistle Listening Library Books
From the author of Blind, a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story set during World War II in Shanghai, one of the only places Jews without visas could find refuge.
Warsaw, Poland. The year is 1940, and Lillia is 15 when her mother, Alenka, disappears and her father flees with Lillia and her younger sister, Naomi, to Shanghai, one of the few places that will accept Jews without visas. There, they struggle to make a life; they have no money, there is little work, no decent place to live, a culture that doesn't understand them. And always the worry about Alenka. How will she find them? Is she still alive? Â
Meanwhile, Lillia is growing up, trying to care for Naomi, whose development is frighteningly slow, in part from malnourishment. Lillia finds an outlet for her artistic talent by making puppets, remembering the happy days in Warsaw when her family members were circus performers. She attends school sporadically, makes friends with Wei, a Chinese boy, and finds work as a performer at a "gentlemen's club" without her father's knowledge.
But meanwhile, the conflict grows more intense as the Americans declare war and the Japanese force the Americans in Shanghai into camps. More bombing, more death. Can they survive, caught in the crossfire?
Download PDF Someday We Will Fly Audible Audio Edition Rachel Dewoskin Jayne Entwistle Listening Library Books
"“Someday We Will Fly†by Rachel DeWoskin is a fascinating account of Jewish refugees during WWII who escaped to Shanghai, one of the few places they could go without a visa. Not only is the setting unusual for a Holocaust story, main character Lillia and her family defy Jewish stereotypes — her parents are circus performers.
At the start of the book, the family is still in Poland, their home. Just before they are to take a train that will take the family to a ship where they will sail to China, Lillia’s mother disappears. She does not reappear before they must leave to get to safety. Lillia details the travels in first person narrative, and she describes the trials of her younger sister, Naomi, who is not developing normally — not crawling or talking.
In China, Lillia attends school and befriends a Chinese boy, Wei. Her father is unable to find work and they must rely on the charity of Jewish organizations. Lillia eventually manages to make some money performing at a “gentlemen’s club,†which would be forbidden if her father knew about it.
The story is realistic, and Lillia is not always an admirable main character. She steals at various times in the story, and some of that theft has terrible consequences for another character in the story. In a discussion format, this would be a great question for teenagers to ponder: Is it ever all right to be dishonest? To steal? To lie?
An interesting note is that the author describes what life was really like in Shanghai during that time for those refugees arriving from Europe with no money or valuables. When visiting Shanghai, travelers can see the Jewish museum, which shows the synagogue and photos from that time but does not explain the extreme hardship that those refugees experienced. In “Someday We Will Fly,†DeWoskin makes the hardships painfully real: the disease, the hunger, the lack of clean water and bathroom facilities. DeWoskin is unflinching in the realistic and harsh descriptions of the circumstances of both refugees and the inhabitants in Shanghai.
While there are several different threads to the plot — the journey to Shanghai, Lillia’s schooling, her mother’s absence, her sister’s development, the Jewish plight, Lillia’s puppet-making — the overall story is compelling and eminently readable.
This is a great choice for a book club or a class group — there is much to discuss, and many questions about morals and life will arise. Perfect for middle school readers and older readers.
This review is based on the final, hardcover book provided by the publisher, Viking, for review purposes."
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Someday We Will Fly Audible Audio Edition Rachel Dewoskin Jayne Entwistle Listening Library Books Reviews :
Someday We Will Fly Audible Audio Edition Rachel Dewoskin Jayne Entwistle Listening Library Books Reviews
- SOMEDAY WE WILL FLY by Rachel DeWoskin
Performers in the Warsaw Circus must flee for their lives from the Nazis. As they flee to Shanghai, Lillia’s mother is lost. She and father left with no Choice, continue to Shanghai where Jews are being offered safety, but not an easy life. As the Japanese draw ever nearer, life becomes more tenuous and scary.
Well written and researched, this YA novel is also a wonderful read for adults. The Jewish experience in war time China has been little known. This book attempts to rectify that omission and succeeds. Lillia, her father and those she comes in contact with are fully developed characters. The plot is engrossing.
5 of 5 stars - “Someday We Will Fly†by Rachel DeWoskin is a fascinating account of Jewish refugees during WWII who escaped to Shanghai, one of the few places they could go without a visa. Not only is the setting unusual for a Holocaust story, main character Lillia and her family defy Jewish stereotypes — her parents are circus performers.
At the start of the book, the family is still in Poland, their home. Just before they are to take a train that will take the family to a ship where they will sail to China, Lillia’s mother disappears. She does not reappear before they must leave to get to safety. Lillia details the travels in first person narrative, and she describes the trials of her younger sister, Naomi, who is not developing normally — not crawling or talking.
In China, Lillia attends school and befriends a Chinese boy, Wei. Her father is unable to find work and they must rely on the charity of Jewish organizations. Lillia eventually manages to make some money performing at a “gentlemen’s club,†which would be forbidden if her father knew about it.
The story is realistic, and Lillia is not always an admirable main character. She steals at various times in the story, and some of that theft has terrible consequences for another character in the story. In a discussion format, this would be a great question for teenagers to ponder Is it ever all right to be dishonest? To steal? To lie?
An interesting note is that the author describes what life was really like in Shanghai during that time for those refugees arriving from Europe with no money or valuables. When visiting Shanghai, travelers can see the Jewish museum, which shows the synagogue and photos from that time but does not explain the extreme hardship that those refugees experienced. In “Someday We Will Fly,†DeWoskin makes the hardships painfully real the disease, the hunger, the lack of clean water and bathroom facilities. DeWoskin is unflinching in the realistic and harsh descriptions of the circumstances of both refugees and the inhabitants in Shanghai.
While there are several different threads to the plot — the journey to Shanghai, Lillia’s schooling, her mother’s absence, her sister’s development, the Jewish plight, Lillia’s puppet-making — the overall story is compelling and eminently readable.
This is a great choice for a book club or a class group — there is much to discuss, and many questions about morals and life will arise. Perfect for middle school readers and older readers.
This review is based on the final, hardcover book provided by the publisher, Viking, for review purposes. - This is a stunning book, definitely the best novel I have read for at least a year. The setting—Japanese occupied Shanghai in the early 1940s. The characters-- a young adolescent Lillia and her father and little sister, refugees from the Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Shanghai was the one place in the world refuges could travel without any papers at all. Lacking papers, many made the long journey to a destination about which they knew nothing and nobody.
Dewoskin’s granular and well-informed descriptions of Shanghai in the early 1940s are themselves worth the read, but added is a profoundly moving story of Lillia coming of age, without her mother, in a land and language that is totally strange to her, in a life that was unexpected, and plagued with hunger, cold, illness, and uncertainty.
From the refugee processing center to the gentleman’s club Magnifique, Lillia more than survives, provides for her father, mothers her little sister, and skillfully navigates a tapestry of new relationships, with other Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, and Americans. Her strength of character, heroic if flawed, is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Lillia’s mother and father were circus performers back in Warsaw, and Lillia her self is a dancer and artist in similar ways. But the brilliance of this book is the way Lillia emerges as an artist of life itself, with dance and with puppetry of all things, forging from the hardships of refugee life something beautiful and enduring.
I cannot say enough good things about this novel. If you read one book this year, you would do well to make it this one.
