From: Dr. Ruth I. Gordon <Druthgo>
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 11:48:15 -0800

CCBCers: I am a constant reader of W.W. II Holocaust books and also those dealing with earlier genocides. Therefore, I come to this with some background. But, I may not be as clear as I wish to be--and ask your patience.
   To those who have had problems with Anita Lobel's "No Pretty Pictures," and wondered about her "adult" take on the life into which she was enslaved because she was Jewish and who interpreted her experiences as a very young child vis-a-vis religion and thought that it was through adult eyes, not those of a child, let me tell an all too true story. My mother (of blessed memory) was a child of immigrants (both English speakers) who settled in Boston considerably before the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. She said that she never realized how sordid were the conditions of life in the slums were until she was an adult. Perhaps, too, it is only through adult eyes and experience that we can recognize and organize our childhoods. Maybe that what's Anita Lobel did in her brilliant book.

Another thought: How about "informal" autobiographies cast in fiction like Allen Say's several recent books detailing his parents' childhoods? They, too, are autobiographies.


 Grandma

================="You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty." Jessica Mitford (191796)
Received on Sat 03 Apr 1999 01:48:15 PM CST