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Author: Sarah Cohen-Scali
Genre: Historical Fiction, YA
Publisher: Roaring Book Press
Date: March 7, 2017
Length: 432 pages
This book was free from NetGalley in Exchange for an honest review
Nazi Germany. 1936.
In the Lebensborn program, carefully selected German women are recruited by the Nazis to give birth to new members of the Aryan race. Inside one of these women is Max, literally counting the minutes until he is born and he can fulfill his destiny as the perfect Aryan specimen.
Max is taken away from his birth mother soon after he enters the world. Raised under the ideology and direction of the Nazi Party, he grows up without any family, without any affection or tenderness, and he soon becomes the mascot of the program. That is until he meets Lukas, a young Jewish boy whom he knows he is meant to despise. Instead, the friendship that blossoms changes Max’s world forever.
Translated from the original French, Sarah Cohen-Scali brings the details of the Lebensborn program to light in this haunting and heartbreaking novel.
Description from
I had initially been very excited about this book. I've read a bit about the Lebensborn program and I thought this would be a great, but painful, read. WW2 books are very popular with older elementary and middle school students. I was hoping that Max would be a more challenging and thought provoking book for my YA readers. Unfortunately I really struggled with this book. I forced myself to finish it because I felt obligated to at least write a review for NetGalley. I'm glad I finished, but it was hard. Even though this was a tough book for me, I think this could be a very successful group reading book.
Max: God, this poor kid. Indoctrinated and raised to be a soldier and sociopath. He went without love, affection, or without any real physical human contact. He was so proud of his "perfection" but also had to constantly be on alert as any misstep could have him euthanized. He could swing from smug confidence to absolute terror over an adult's slight frown. It was absolutely exhausting and inhuman that a child would be raised this way.
Max as the narrator: Since the horrors around Max have been normalized, he speaks about them in frank or bored tones. The reader understands what's happening, but Max truly doesn't. He doesn't understand why Lukas would cry for him, he doesn't understand that he's being used to kidnap other children, he doesn't understand that he is actually being abused. I remember reading one section and there was just this dawning realization of what the Brown Sisters were doing. This disconnect between Max's matter of fact tone and the reader's knowledge of what's really going on makes everything so much more horrible. How can this kid save himself if he doesn't even know he needs saving?
What I liked
The topic: Several years ago I stumbled across a news article about the Lebensborn program. Being the super nerd librarian that I am, I did additional research and it broke my heart. Not only were these children brainwashed and robbed of a healthy childhood, many were kidnapped from other countries and "Germanized". And to top it off, after the war they became a shameful secret and were ostracized and abused. In other countries these children were treated as like war criminals many were sterilized, institutionalized, and abused to prevent them from forming a fifth column and starting another war. I think it's important that not only this horrific Nazi program not be forgotten, but not to forget that other governments were happy to punish children in lieu of the actual guilty parties.Max: God, this poor kid. Indoctrinated and raised to be a soldier and sociopath. He went without love, affection, or without any real physical human contact. He was so proud of his "perfection" but also had to constantly be on alert as any misstep could have him euthanized. He could swing from smug confidence to absolute terror over an adult's slight frown. It was absolutely exhausting and inhuman that a child would be raised this way.
Max as the narrator: Since the horrors around Max have been normalized, he speaks about them in frank or bored tones. The reader understands what's happening, but Max truly doesn't. He doesn't understand why Lukas would cry for him, he doesn't understand that he's being used to kidnap other children, he doesn't understand that he is actually being abused. I remember reading one section and there was just this dawning realization of what the Brown Sisters were doing. This disconnect between Max's matter of fact tone and the reader's knowledge of what's really going on makes everything so much more horrible. How can this kid save himself if he doesn't even know he needs saving?
Brutal Honesty: There is no sugar coating here. Horrible things happen and Cohen-Scali is blunt about it.
This is a violent book: Not that I'm a fan of war crimes but it is an honest account of living in a war zone, Nazi programs, etc. And bad things happen so quickly, out of nowhere. These doctors would kill a child for any perceived imperfection and then study them. Russian soldiers rape women, Max speaks frankly of children being dissected or people who made mistakes being sent to camps. I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and I'm still dwelling on two incidents in particular.
The very end of the book: I'm not being mean, and I don't want to give away spoilers, but that last little bit and you realize everything Max has been through... it broke my heart.
This is a violent book: Not that I'm a fan of war crimes but it is an honest account of living in a war zone, Nazi programs, etc. And bad things happen so quickly, out of nowhere. These doctors would kill a child for any perceived imperfection and then study them. Russian soldiers rape women, Max speaks frankly of children being dissected or people who made mistakes being sent to camps. I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and I'm still dwelling on two incidents in particular.
The very end of the book: I'm not being mean, and I don't want to give away spoilers, but that last little bit and you realize everything Max has been through... it broke my heart.
What I'm on the fence about
Baby as a narrator: There is something disturbing about a fetus as a narrator. Top that off with his detached discussion of the Lebensborn Project, rape, dissection, and concentration camps and I was totally creeped out.What didn't work for me
It was so slow: The first part of the book was setting up the Lebensborn Program and the information was incredibly important but caused the book to start with a plodding pace. When students are picking out books for leisure reading (i.e. not an assigned book) I tell them if they can't get into after 4 chapters or first 50 pages, then to return it and try something else. (A lot of my students don't have a ton of free time and I want to support them choosing books to relax with, I don't want them to suffer through it.) If I had followed my own advice I never would have finished this book. I think this could could be very successful as a class assignment/read so that kids can discuss and analyze it. I think that involvement in the text will make the slower parts less noticeable and turn it into more of an experience.
Too much information: There is just so much information that at times the book moves at a glacial pace. While Max is definitely well researched, and all this information is important to history and fully understanding how inhumane this program was, I don't think every tiny bit needed to be included in a YA fiction book.
Too much information: There is just so much information that at times the book moves at a glacial pace. While Max is definitely well researched, and all this information is important to history and fully understanding how inhumane this program was, I don't think every tiny bit needed to be included in a YA fiction book.
Rating: 2.5 - 3.0
I'm torn with this rating, but I'm approaching this as a librarian. While I personally found it incredibly slow because of the deluge of information, I do know students who would love this amount of detail or teachers that could make this book come alive through class discussion and interaction. I think that many readers will enjoy this book a lot more then I did. Despite my very real struggles to even pick this book back up, this is one of those stories that's going to stay with me for a long time. The problems I had with the book aren't going to haunt me like Max himself will. And that, for all my issues with it, is why I'm glad I finished this book.
Did anybody else out there have the same problems with Max as I did? I thought this would enter my full proof WWII reading list along with The Berlin Boxing Club, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Someone Named Eva, and The Boy Who Dared, but it just didn't. Do you have a WWII historical fiction book you'd recommend for the middle-high school crowd?
I've never heard of the Lebensborn program. It sounds utterly horrifying. This sounds like such a difficult book to read. I'm sorry that the pacing was off for you, but I'm happy you were able to finish. Fantastic review!
ReplyDeleteIt's great that this book shines a light on a topic, and children, that have been hidden for so long.
DeleteI actually had to put Max down, it was too hard for me- especially with how unsettling our current political climate is, I was so upset I had to stop. I DO want to try again though. I had a friend who read it (borrowed mine actually haha) and really thought it was well done, so I DO want to give it another shot one day. Thanks for the great review!!
ReplyDeletePhew, I'm so glad it's not just me! I saw all of the gushing GR reviews and kept wondering what was wrong with me. It is a tough book.
DeleteOh I want to read this one! Although I'm really worried about the slowness and the need to read-between-the-lines because sometimes I really struggle with that? But it sounds like a really important story and I don't actually know anything about this program of the Nazi's and I studied a lot of WWII stuff in school...so I kind of would like to know. But the abuse sounds like it'd be incredibly hard to read.
ReplyDeleteI loved your review!
I look at other reviews and people just loved it, so I kinda feel like I'm the only one who found it slow. The real kicker was this kid who is brutally cold and complacent about what was happening around him. This is an incredibly well researched book and made extra creepy because it's based on fact.
Delete