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1.0étoiles sur 5
A review for parents, Jui 30 2004
This book was on a list of recommended summer reading for my daughter. I was disturbed by the two sentence synopsis on the list and decided to purchase and read it myself to find out if the school to which I pay a princely sum every year, was indeed recommending a book with such a poor moral foundation. What I found out was that not only was the two-sentence synoposis accurate, the book was worse than described. (To get a plot summary look at some of the other reviews--I won't waste space with that here.) Nowhere in this book is there an acknowledgment that POWs--regardless of what their personal political stands may be--belong in POW camps until the end of hostilities. The heroine of this story is in fact championed for protecting an escaping POW. There had been no build up suggesting that conditions at the camp were subhuman, etc. No, he just didn't want to be there. He wasn't a Nazi, he was misunderstood, a product of his historical circumstance, etc. Our heroine's eventual punishment is presented as the result of an unfortunate legally-required minimum, not as an appropriate punishment for her actions. She is now the victim of a legal system that can't acknowledge her personal circumstances--her evil father and mother who through their lack of love drove her to want to help the German soldier. The fact is, our heroine's "protection" of the soldier is an indirect cause of his eventual death, something which never even seems to occur to the heroine--or to anyone else for that matter. It is odd that after portraying the soldier as having such great personal potential and goodness that he should be protected from internment at a POW camp, the author does nothing to suggest at his death that his life had any value beyond his relationship with our heroine. Even there his memory serves as nothing more than a foundation for her daydreams. And her daydreaming is not about his life cut short, it's about her playing the role of sympathetic visitor to his grieving mother in Germany! Not only does this story present extremely poor choices by a 12-year-old as praiseworthy, it never questions a relationship between a 12-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man, and it romanticizes death--a very unfortunate theme among much of what passes for award-worthy modern children's literature. Finally, all of the characters are completely one-dimensional. The heroine's parents are evil without explanation, the German soldier is a perfect gentleman, the townspeople are hysterical bigots, the heroine's black maid is wise and the only source of love for the heroine. With all the great literature out there, why do we have our children read this junk? What our children read is important and it is very disturbing that it appears from the other reviews that a great many schools seem to be using this book as part of a literature or history program. It is poor on all levels, poorly written, poor character and plot development, and poor moral lessons.
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4.0étoiles sur 5
Book Review for Summer of My German Soldier, Mai 27 2004
Par Un client
Summer of My German Soldier is about a young adolescent 12 year-old-girl named Patty who is Jewish. She falls in love with a Nazi soldier when she is at her father's shop. He asks her what kind of pencil sharpener he should buy. He falls in love with her. Her grandmother then takes her out on a fancy train ride, and buys her new clothes. Patty loves this outing because her parents do not really understand her at back at home. Anton then escaped from the prison after her train ride with her grandmother. She feeds him, in her garage, and takes care of him, only until she has to eventually tell Ruth. He then leaves her. She often sees him walking, and calls out, but he does not hear her. One day when he actually heard her, she went inside the house and stole tons of food all for him. Later that day, her father comes home and notices a ring on her finger. She said that it was from a nice man who wanted food, so she gave it to him. Since she was so nice he gave her the ring, when it was really from Anton. Her father, as usual, got really upset at this, and suspected that he did something to her. She swore nothing happened, but with his stubborn mind, whacked her across the forehead. Ruth pampered and watched over her. Since Ruth was talking Patty's side, Patty's dad fired Ruth. It was the first time that she had ever been fired. Near the end of the book Patty hears that Anton gets killed, and is devastated. The overall book was enjoyable, but some did not really make sense. For example, even though we knew that the father of Patti was moody, it really did not make sense for him to beat her at the times that he did. When he was in the garage, and his temper rising, he slapped her across the face asking her where she got the ring. Secondly, I thought that some parts were rather slow, and did not need to be there. I would rate this book four stars out of five because I enjoyed the story, but some parts of the book did not need to be there, and some parts were slow.
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2.0étoiles sur 5
Summer of my German Soldier, Mai 27 2004
Par Un client
I read Summer of My German Soldier recently. I enjoyed this book, but I also believe that it could possibly have been better. It is about Jewish girl, Patti, living in Arkansas during World War Two. A prison camp for Germans is opened near her town, and one day in her father's store she meets one named Anton. She instantly befriends him, and when he escapes the camp she shelters him in the garage. Eventually, after he leaves, he gets killed. I strongly feel that the idea of this story was very genius, but the book could have been better. A Jewish girl falling in love with a German soldier could have so many possibilities, but the story lacks any action or suspense. There were so many boring parts during that book it made me sick. Many parts were Patti just thinking about her love for Anton. Even Patti said at one point that she was bored. The story also didn't develop the characters very well. When Anton died, because of bad character development, it didn't have as much emotion as it could have. The part about her transitioning to jail was confusing as well. I do believe that these parts could have been much better in the story, and it could have also been made a splendid book. With better character development and a more clear and exciting plotline, this book definitely had potential, but failed.
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