CCBC-Net Archives
Autobiography
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 15:03:46 -0500
Naomi Toder raises some very interesting points about "No Pretty Pictures." As an adult reader, I, too, wondered what young readers with no previous knowledge of the Holocaust might take away from the book.
Any responses?
KT Horning
Kathleen T. Horning (horning at facstaff.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706 608&3930 FAX: 608&2I33
Hello,
Some thoughts on the Anita Lobel book _No Pretty Pictures_, a book whose strengths I think have been overpraised and whose flaws overlooked:
Yes, I did find the book affecting, as I have all the other Holocaust memoirs I have read. There are few books on this subject that are not affecting. However I find its anti-Jewish tone as outlined previously quite dismaying. Calling this book "politcally incorrect" as an apologia obscures its shortcomings from a multicultural perspective; the notion of a general young non-Jewish readership learning about Jews and the Holocaust through the eyes of Ms. Lobel is problematic. Does one want to promulgate a view in which a non-Jewish servant is approvingly remembered as cooking bacon in the kitchen of her employers? Is the Holocaust to be remembered as an event visited on a loathesome, dark-complected people lacking a beautiful and meaningful culture?
Anita Lobel is certainly entitled to write her own story. Unfortunately her prominence as a children's book illustrator gives her book an audience - and perhaps a reception - that it does not deserve. When out of the child's POV she makes a number of factual errors, the most glaring being her perplexity at the Nazis deporting her just a few weeks before their defeat in eastern Europe. The fact is that killing Jews was *the* central mission of the war and achieving this took precedence over military considerations. How could she (or her editor) not know this by now?
For different perspectives one might compare her book to _Thanks to My Mother_, the two Livia Bitton Jackson memoirs, and those of Aranka Siegel, especially _Grace in the Wilderness_ for its treatment of rehabilitation in Sweden. All are equally if not more horrific and do not convey the self-hating view of Ms. Lobel.
Please note that I do not feel that Ms. Lobel's own experience should be suppressed; it has its validity as does every Holocaust "testimony." However, its utility is questionable.
Naomi Toder
Received on Mon 05 Apr 1999 03:03:46 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 15:03:46 -0500
Naomi Toder raises some very interesting points about "No Pretty Pictures." As an adult reader, I, too, wondered what young readers with no previous knowledge of the Holocaust might take away from the book.
Any responses?
KT Horning
Kathleen T. Horning (horning at facstaff.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-School of Education 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706 608&3930 FAX: 608&2I33
Hello,
Some thoughts on the Anita Lobel book _No Pretty Pictures_, a book whose strengths I think have been overpraised and whose flaws overlooked:
Yes, I did find the book affecting, as I have all the other Holocaust memoirs I have read. There are few books on this subject that are not affecting. However I find its anti-Jewish tone as outlined previously quite dismaying. Calling this book "politcally incorrect" as an apologia obscures its shortcomings from a multicultural perspective; the notion of a general young non-Jewish readership learning about Jews and the Holocaust through the eyes of Ms. Lobel is problematic. Does one want to promulgate a view in which a non-Jewish servant is approvingly remembered as cooking bacon in the kitchen of her employers? Is the Holocaust to be remembered as an event visited on a loathesome, dark-complected people lacking a beautiful and meaningful culture?
Anita Lobel is certainly entitled to write her own story. Unfortunately her prominence as a children's book illustrator gives her book an audience - and perhaps a reception - that it does not deserve. When out of the child's POV she makes a number of factual errors, the most glaring being her perplexity at the Nazis deporting her just a few weeks before their defeat in eastern Europe. The fact is that killing Jews was *the* central mission of the war and achieving this took precedence over military considerations. How could she (or her editor) not know this by now?
For different perspectives one might compare her book to _Thanks to My Mother_, the two Livia Bitton Jackson memoirs, and those of Aranka Siegel, especially _Grace in the Wilderness_ for its treatment of rehabilitation in Sweden. All are equally if not more horrific and do not convey the self-hating view of Ms. Lobel.
Please note that I do not feel that Ms. Lobel's own experience should be suppressed; it has its validity as does every Holocaust "testimony." However, its utility is questionable.
Naomi Toder
Received on Mon 05 Apr 1999 03:03:46 PM CDT
