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No Pretty Pictures
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From: GWoelfle at aol.com <GWoelfle>
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 15:29:14 EDT
I, too, was moved by Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures. Though she maintains a child's point of view, it does change as the protagonist grows. The account of Lobel's early teens in Sweden is told in a different voice from that of her years in Poland. She can now begin to observe and understand those around her -- e.g. the kvetching Jewish refugees in her boarding house.
Even more, she can recognize the lingering effects of the Holocaust on her psychology -- e.g. her entrance into the camp for Polish refugee children reawakens terrible fears of the concentration camps. This is a more mature voice than that which told us about running and hiding from the Nazis.
About her "Jewishness" -- it seems clear to me that at no time does she identify with the Jewish religion. She embraces her nanny's Christian angels and Virgin Mary. Time after tiime she -- the child -- believes that the Catholic medals she wears around her neck and the prayers she sends to Mary, save her from danger and death. In Sweden she embraces Protestantism. She shuns the other Jewish girl at the refugee camp. When the family is reunited, "Mother and Father were constantly reminding me how important it was to be Jewish.... I went along with my parents to Stockholm's one temple a few times. It meant nothing to me." She mentions no change of heart in the epilogue. How much clearer could she be about her lack of Jewish faith? This is yet another strength of the book for me -- Lobel's willingness to present complex, possibly "politically incorrect" feelings and perceptions.
In this light, her portrait of her Niania is so compelling. Here is a peasant Catholic, certain that her young charges are damned because they are unbaptized, clinging to a bitter hostility that their people "killed Jesus"
-- yet loving the children so fiercely that she risks her life for YEARS to save them from the Nazis. The adult Lobel says "she protected my brother and me with the flapping wings of a demented angel." What an image!
Lobel canonizes no one in this book (including herself.) Rather she presents a multi?ceted horrific "adult" story in language accessible to children. What an achievement!
Gretchen Woelfle Author
Received on Sun 04 Apr 1999 02:29:14 PM CDT
Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 15:29:14 EDT
I, too, was moved by Anita Lobel's No Pretty Pictures. Though she maintains a child's point of view, it does change as the protagonist grows. The account of Lobel's early teens in Sweden is told in a different voice from that of her years in Poland. She can now begin to observe and understand those around her -- e.g. the kvetching Jewish refugees in her boarding house.
Even more, she can recognize the lingering effects of the Holocaust on her psychology -- e.g. her entrance into the camp for Polish refugee children reawakens terrible fears of the concentration camps. This is a more mature voice than that which told us about running and hiding from the Nazis.
About her "Jewishness" -- it seems clear to me that at no time does she identify with the Jewish religion. She embraces her nanny's Christian angels and Virgin Mary. Time after tiime she -- the child -- believes that the Catholic medals she wears around her neck and the prayers she sends to Mary, save her from danger and death. In Sweden she embraces Protestantism. She shuns the other Jewish girl at the refugee camp. When the family is reunited, "Mother and Father were constantly reminding me how important it was to be Jewish.... I went along with my parents to Stockholm's one temple a few times. It meant nothing to me." She mentions no change of heart in the epilogue. How much clearer could she be about her lack of Jewish faith? This is yet another strength of the book for me -- Lobel's willingness to present complex, possibly "politically incorrect" feelings and perceptions.
In this light, her portrait of her Niania is so compelling. Here is a peasant Catholic, certain that her young charges are damned because they are unbaptized, clinging to a bitter hostility that their people "killed Jesus"
-- yet loving the children so fiercely that she risks her life for YEARS to save them from the Nazis. The adult Lobel says "she protected my brother and me with the flapping wings of a demented angel." What an image!
Lobel canonizes no one in this book (including herself.) Rather she presents a multi?ceted horrific "adult" story in language accessible to children. What an achievement!
Gretchen Woelfle Author
Received on Sun 04 Apr 1999 02:29:14 PM CDT
