School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4This extraordinarily moving picture book, originally published in France and set in the north of France during World War II, has spare prose and appropriately stark illustrations. An elderly woman recalls an incident in her childhood that she would give anything to undo. Her Jewish friend Lydia is visiting, and, in the middle of the night, a frightened Jewish woman seeking refuge awakens them by pounding on the door of a ``safe house'' across the hall. Lydia then asks to be taken home. With deep sorrow and guilt, Helen remembers that she shouted at her friend for leaving on the eve of her birthday. Stars are the symbols around which the story turns. Lydia's mother, sewing the yellow star on her daughter's jacket, explains that a new law compels Jews to wear them but that ``the place for stars is in the sky.'' The woman in the hall is trying to tear the star off her coat and when Helen, already contrite, opens the birthday present left for her by Lydia, she sees a paper doll with Lydia's face painted on, complete with a wardrobe including a jacket with a star. Helen never sees her friend again and, for a long time, she is angry at the stars. The illustrations appear to be of charcoal and crayon pastels in subdued colors with black outlines. The drawings are simple and barely rounded, almost as if the figures were paper dolls, as well. A mood of fear and impending doom prevails. Will it reach children? Absolutely. There is no book exactly like this one. Elisabeth Reuter's Best Friends (Yellow Brick Road, 1993) is somewhat similar, but Star is the superior title.Marcia W. Posner, Holocaust Memorial and Educational Center of Nassau County, Glen Cove, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Suffused with bittersweet regret, this sensitive picture book from France begins with the reminiscences of an old woman. The narrator, Helen, describes being eight years old-when it's 1942, in Nazi-occupied France. Her best friend, Lydia, has been forced to wear a Star of David on her jacket. The night of Helen's ninth birthday, Lydia sleeps over. While Helen's parents are at work, strangers tap on a neighbor's door, calling out strange passwords and looking for shelter. The Nazis are arresting Jews. Lydia asks to go home to her family, which infuriates Helen-it's her birthday, after all. Her last words to Lydia are "You're not my friend anymore!" She never sees Lydia again but, in all the intervening years, sustains hope (``with all my heart'') that Lydia has survived. In a powerful marriage of art and text, the simple, spare lines and muted tones of Kang's illustrations quietly support the poignant story. Fluidly written and centered in events a child can comprehend, the book is an ideal starting point for serious discussion about the Holocaust. Ages 7-10. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
This poignant account of childhood innocence destroyed by the Nazi occupation of France touches both heart and mind. A woman named Helen, remembering her ninth birthday, still regrets the angry comment she made that day to her Jewish friend Lydia -- who disappeared the next morning when the Nazis began rounding up the Jews and arresting them. The illustrations are minimal in detail yet emotionally evocative. From HORN BOOK 1995, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The thoughtless words of childhood become the focus of the narrator's haunted memories of WW II. Helen recalls the events of her ninth birthday in occupied France in 1942. Lydia, her best friend, comes over to spend the night, and they amuse themselves by telling ghost stories. When a stranger wearing a yellow star like Lydia's comes looking for a place to hide, Lydia suddenly wants to go home. Helen is angry and shouts to the departing girl that she is not her friend anymore. The next day Lydia and her family have disappeared. The simple storyline brings together a complex combination of elements--ghost stories and fights between friends who suddenly find themselves in the context of war--all of which are penetrated by an equally complex narratorial voice, capable of differentiating among subtle shades of emotion. It belongs both to the old woman telling the story and to the nine-year-old girl she was. As a result of this layering of perspective, the characters and story have depth through minimal means (sketchy details, snatches of conversation). This is even more effective in the wondrous pictures. In her first book, Kang's palette contains only browns, grays, yellows, and redsmuted colors, forming the geometric interiors of barren apartments. If the individual colors and shapes in the pictures are simple, as a whole they create an intensely expressive atmosphere. (Picture book. 7-10)
Booklist Review
Gr. 2-4. Like Richter's Friedrich (1970) for older readers, this picture book dramatizes the Holocaust from the point of view of a gentile child who watches the mounting persecution of a Jewish friend. Translated from the French, the story is narrated by Helen, who remembers herself at nine years old in 1942 when the Nazis occupied northern France. Why does her best friend, Lydia, have to wear a yellow star? Why are people in hiding and using strange names? What is Lydia afraid of? Helen quarrels with her friend, and then Lydia is taken away, and Helen never sees her again. The book won the Graphics Prize at the 1994 Bologna Book Fair. The pastel pictures in sepia tones are understated, with an old-fashioned, almost childlike simplicity. In contrast to the quiet pictures of the children together inside the house, there's a climactic double-page street scene of a long column of people carrying suitcases and being marched away by the French police. Without being maudlin or sensational, the story brings the genocide home. (Reviewed May 01, 1995)0802783732Hazel Rochman
