From: Monica R. Edinger <edinger>
Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 10:01:40 +0000

jvanston at suffolk.lib.ny.us writes:

I must concur with Michele Missner that this is not the way I interpreted No Pretty Pictures. I didn't find Lobel turning into a Catholic anymore than her brother turned into a girl. Of course, she reacted powerfully to situations and people and was more honest about it than many are when writing on this topic. I found her child voice incredibly real and powerful. I think too often we expect a certain sort of voice describing the events of the Holocaust and I for one am very happy to see survivors like Lobel provide something other than the dominant view for children. I feel that it would be natural for a child in her situations to reject strongly at points that which had made her and her family victims. However, like Michelle, I never felt she rejected her religion.

No Pretty Pictures is incredibly powerful because it is so real. I think Lobel did an extraordinary job managing to discribe many horrific incidences from a child's point of view. She wrote about illness, basic issues of food, cleanliness, elimination which are delicately left out of most of this sort of literature for children. It reminded me of Primo Levi's works in that it was so honest and unflinching. No Pretty Pictures means just that, ugly in many ways including herself at times.

Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York edinger at dalton.org
Received on Fri 02 Apr 1999 04:01:40 AM CST