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No Pretty Pictures
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From: Melody Allen <melodyan>
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 10:04:53 -0500
I was so impressed with No Pretty Pictures because of Anita Lobel's brutal honesty in her look back and because of the childlike perspective. One scene I thought worked very well was the nighttime march in the snow. First, she was confronted with the decision about running off into the woods. It seems reading it that she makes the "right" choice, but the epilogue lets us know more about the circumstances in hindsight and ache with her for the results. Then, she proceeds to describe the joy of a child outdoors in the normally forbidden middle of the night, sensuously marvelling at the crisp air and beauty of the snow. As readers of Holocaust literature know, it is exactly this ability to find positives in the horror that gave strength to those who survived. So much about cruelty and courage, trust and suspicion, suffering and survival is encapsulated in this one scene. Melody Allen Melodyan at lori.state.ri.us
---------From: Dean Schneider Sent: Friday, April 02, 1999 9:08 AM To: ccbc-net at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu (Subscribers of ccbc-net) Subject: No Pretty Pictures
No Pretty Pictures is one of at least three especially fine Holocaust memoirs to come out this year, along with Thanks To My Mother and Edith Baer's Walk the Dark Streets. No Pretty Pictures is distiinguished for its voice, sticking the matter-of?ct voice and perspective of a very young girl throughout. It is also a beautifully made book, clearly another book that has been a labor of love for the writer, editor, and publisher (Greenwillow). Though the narrative sticks to the young child's perspective throughout, I have to admit I also like the adult perspective that frames the story in the prologue and epilogue, because it is here that Anita Lobel takes measure of her experience, saying," Only when I was much older did the horrors and terrible losses of fully conscious people during all those years of terror dawn on me....I mourn for all those who were grown, thinking people and who were truly capable of knowing and feeling that which was torn from them." And she says, "I have spent many, many more years living well, occupied with doing happy and interesting things, than I spent ducking the Nazis or being a refugee." Hers is a beautifully written memoir; we can learn form her experience and from her reflectiveness as an adult pondering the meaning of that experience.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37205
Received on Fri 02 Apr 1999 09:04:53 AM CST
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 10:04:53 -0500
I was so impressed with No Pretty Pictures because of Anita Lobel's brutal honesty in her look back and because of the childlike perspective. One scene I thought worked very well was the nighttime march in the snow. First, she was confronted with the decision about running off into the woods. It seems reading it that she makes the "right" choice, but the epilogue lets us know more about the circumstances in hindsight and ache with her for the results. Then, she proceeds to describe the joy of a child outdoors in the normally forbidden middle of the night, sensuously marvelling at the crisp air and beauty of the snow. As readers of Holocaust literature know, it is exactly this ability to find positives in the horror that gave strength to those who survived. So much about cruelty and courage, trust and suspicion, suffering and survival is encapsulated in this one scene. Melody Allen Melodyan at lori.state.ri.us
---------From: Dean Schneider Sent: Friday, April 02, 1999 9:08 AM To: ccbc-net at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu (Subscribers of ccbc-net) Subject: No Pretty Pictures
No Pretty Pictures is one of at least three especially fine Holocaust memoirs to come out this year, along with Thanks To My Mother and Edith Baer's Walk the Dark Streets. No Pretty Pictures is distiinguished for its voice, sticking the matter-of?ct voice and perspective of a very young girl throughout. It is also a beautifully made book, clearly another book that has been a labor of love for the writer, editor, and publisher (Greenwillow). Though the narrative sticks to the young child's perspective throughout, I have to admit I also like the adult perspective that frames the story in the prologue and epilogue, because it is here that Anita Lobel takes measure of her experience, saying," Only when I was much older did the horrors and terrible losses of fully conscious people during all those years of terror dawn on me....I mourn for all those who were grown, thinking people and who were truly capable of knowing and feeling that which was torn from them." And she says, "I have spent many, many more years living well, occupied with doing happy and interesting things, than I spent ducking the Nazis or being a refugee." Hers is a beautifully written memoir; we can learn form her experience and from her reflectiveness as an adult pondering the meaning of that experience.
Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37205
Received on Fri 02 Apr 1999 09:04:53 AM CST
