- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Viking Children's Books; 1 edition (Feb 9 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0670011576
- ISBN-13: 978-0670011575
- Product Dimensions: 21.5 x 15.4 x 2.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #932,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thoughtful historical novel set during Hitler's rise to power., Feb 19 2010
By Rebecca Herman - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ashes (Hardcover)
Thirteen-year-old Gabriella Schramm lives a comfortable and happy life with her middle class family in Berlin, Germany in 1932. Her father is a scientist who studies and teaches physics at the university. Because of his work, Albert Einstein is a friend of the family. Gaby enjoys reading books, going on after school outings to the zoo and the movies with her best friend, Rosa, and spending summers at her family's vacation home by the lake. Her biggest worry up until now has been the teacher who confiscates the books he catches Gaby reading during class. But all that is about to change, as Adolf Hitler grows in popularity and power.
First, Hitler's private army, in their brown uniforms, begins to fill the streets of Berlin. Then the persecution of Jews and communists begins. Intellectuals and scientists like Gaby's father are a target, too, for teaching un-German ideas and for not supporting the Nazis. Gaby is increasingly worried that her older sister Ulla's boyfriend may be a Nazi. And even the books Gaby enjoys escaping into in these troubled times are becoming a target. As her entire world changes and seems to crumble around her, Gaby must come to terms with all that she has lost.
Ashes is a fascinating and often troubling look at life in Germany during Hitler's rise to power. Gaby was a very likeable heroine. I especially enjoyed that she loved reading and that books were her escape into another world, which reminded me of myself at her age. If you enjoy historical fiction and are interested in this time period then I highly recommend you read this book, and I also think it would make good supplemental reading for preteens and young teens learning about this era of history in school.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breath-taking!, Jan 22 2011
By Aubrey Lively "aubrey" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ashes (Hardcover)
I enjoy historical fiction, but it almost seems unfair to classify this book: it rises above genre. It's a coming-of-age story, & it's a human story. Post-WWI Germany is just its tumultuous setting, although "just" is hardly an appropriate adjective. When we define something as a "setting," there seems to be the implication that it's distinctly less relevant than plot or characterization. But of course, none of us can really separate the setting of our lives from the plot, & it is often as much our setting as anything that gives us character, makes us who we are. Lasky writes as if she understands this deeply.
Ashes is as fun to read as mind-candy & perhaps it is that that makes its beauty all the more stunning. Several times, I had to stop reading--just to breathe. It's not a breathless adventure novel; it's just that its...authenticity...takes you that much by surprise. In retrospect, I don't think I've ever read a truer book, on either side of the library.
If you've ever read anything else by Kathryn Lasky, assume nothing about this novel. I read The Night Journey to the kids the week before I read Ashes. Thirty years have passed between the publication of the two books, & it shows. Lasky's skill has developed so incredibly in those intervening years that she is almost unrecognizable from one book to another. Ashes reads as if it were a story she'd been wanting to tell her whole life & finally, she's pulled together the words & the images, & the result is a masterpiece, a life's work.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Just ok, Dec 18 2010
By avid read 2010 - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Ashes (Hardcover)
I have read a lot of Holocaust books and I read about 100 adolescent lit books a year. This one was ok but it took too long to get into, in my opinion, and left the reader wondering what happens at the most crucial part (not a bad thing, but not my taste). It was an ok read, but I'm also glad I checked it out at the library and didn't purchase it.
My 7th and 8th grade students LOVE other books by this author, though.
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