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Children's Books

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2009
After the Train

Set in West Germany ten years after the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, this novel shares the experiences of Peter Liebig during his thirteenth summer as he makes life-changing discoveries about himself.  At first, a history assignment meant to cause him to learn about his country's past excites his interest and encourages him to ask his father what part he played in the war.  His father's reluctance to divulge details excites Peter's curiosity, causing him to stealthily hunt through his parents' papers.  The more he finds out, the more intensely he investigates.  Soon his mother and father are forced to confirm his suspicions and they reveal to him that during the war he was handed to his adoptive mother (a Red Cross worker) by a Jewish woman being taken to Dachau, a death camp.  Slowly, he works through the emotional upheaval created by these revelations.  He is supported by his parents, two enterprising school friends, and a kindly Jewish bricklayer.  Even though anti-Semitism rears its ugly head ten years after it was supposedly defeated, it is not victorious.  Students in fourth through eighth grades will appreciate this follow-up to books about the Holocaust.

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