Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust

Rating:
Summary: Great Really Great
Review: Brilliant! I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to teach there kids about holocaust things.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible things
Review: Eve Bunting is fabulous author and I admire her work.. but she relate's rabbits and frogs to the holocost, really, think about this for a moment, can rabbits and frogs REALLY teach kids about went on during the holocost, the most aful thing that has happened, I think, cannot be put into words. But I'm older than the preferred reading level for this so maybe they are to young to know what really went on. Younger kids might rate this differently, butg as a 12 year old, I'm sticking to this.

Rating:
Summary: Brief Reflections On Terrible Things
Review: I stumbled upon this book whilst babysitting my niece and I'd like to give my thoughts on it. Many well-meaning liberal parents may buy this for their children, which I think is a mistake.

The reading level of this book is about 4-6. Children young enough to be entertained by this story should not know anything of the reality of the holocaust. Not until they are atleast 8 or 9. A child of 4 or 5 is simply too young to be forced to deal with what is, probably, the most horrendous evil of this or any century.

At first, since the subtitle reads: "an allegory of the holocaust", I was expecting something similiar to "Maus" but instead, I got something more akin to an allegorical re-telling of Martin Niemoeller's famous and oft-quoted phrase ("First they come for the communists, but I did not speak up...). First they come for the animals with tails (or something, I don't remember exactly) and then the squirrels and various other woodlawn creatures. Then the animals discuss never letting it happen again.

Now, it's a fine moral and one that needs to be learned. All I'm suggesting is that we don't let good intentions and liberal ideals push our children into the hard facts of adult existence too quickly. It's devastating enough to know that man is capable of such brutal cruelty when you're an adult.

Once you learn that there were people named Josef Mengele and Adolf Hitler, the world ceases to be the same happy place (and there's no going back... seraphim with flaming swords bar the gate to that Eden).

Let children prolong their naive ignorance of the fact that man can be a cruel and vicious animal for as long as it is socially responsible for you to do so. I suggest that this should be longer than 5-6 years.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible Things
Review: I was curious to see how Eve Bunting would turn the Holocaust into an allegory appropriate for young children, but as soon as I started reading "Terrible Things" the inspiration for her story became clear. The Terrible Things first come to the forest for every creature with feathers on its back. The frogs, squirrels, and other animals quickly declare that they do not have feathers, that the forest is better without the birds, and that they are all glad that it was not them that the Terrible Things wanted.

Clearly Eve Bunting takes her text from the famous statement attributed to Martin Niemoeller. If I remember correctly Niemoeller was a pastor. He told about how in Germany the Nazis first came for the Communists, but since he was not a Communist he did not speak up. Then they came for the Jews, but again he did not speak up because he was not a Jew. The same rationale explained his silence when they came for the trade unionists and Catholics. "Then they came for me," Niemoeller said, "and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Niemoeller's words might be the most famous declaration about the Holocaust and its appropriateness for being the basis of an allegory for young children should be self-evident. Bunting is not talking as much about the mass exterminations by the Nazis as she is about the culpability of the ordinary citizens who looked the other way when terrible things happened in Germany. The rhetorical question Bunting asks is "If everybody had stood together at the first sign of evil would this have happened?" If young children do not know the answer to that question before they read "Terrible Things," they certainly will afterwards.

Before she tells the story, which is illustrated by Stephen Gammell with pencil drawings, Bunting provides the moral for her tale. Acknowledging that standing up for what you know is right is not always easy, especially when you are facing someone biggers and stronger than you are, Bunting admits to her readers that it is easier to look the other way, "But if you do, terrible things can happen." The strength of "Terrible Things" is that Bunting makes the lesson Niemoeller shared about the Holocaust easily recognizable and understandable to young children.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible Things
Review: Terrible Things is based on the Holocaust and what happened during that time. Animals are used instead of people, and a forest instead of Europe. It talks about how terrible things came into the woods and took away animals by what they were or what they had for a tail or feathers. The animals talked to one another about their friends being taken away after it happened and not trying to prevent it from happening again. I think it teaches that there are times when you should get involved with business that doesn't include you and times when you shouldn't.
I think the age level is maybe around 7-9 years. I think the book was interesting because it teaches history and is a story at the same time.