The Safest Lie

Reviewed by: Phyllis Fuchs - Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: May 11, 2016

Review

This story is written by the author to honor a real World War II spy credited with helping to smuggle food, clothing and medicine into the Warsaw ghetto and successfully smuggling out over twenty five hundred of its children. Nine year old Anna, Jewish and living in Warsaw, Poland is the story's narrator. She tells of having to leave her home, school, parents and friends and assume a new identity in order to escape the impending Nazi holocaust. She is taken first to a Catholic orphanage and later to a foster family, retaining her new Polish name and pretending to be a Christian. The book's short chapters written in under two hundred pages can be read independently by nine to twelve year olds. However, for this age group, World War II and the Warsaw ghetto may signify very little. What Anna's story does make very clear are the pain and the damaging effects of war on children like Anna who survive it. Sadly enough, it is a most timely focus since Anna is as much an immigrant child as those we read about in today's newspapers. At the novel's end Anna is about to leave for Canada to join an aunt she does not know but where she can reclaim her name and Jewish heritage. Teachers, parents and young people with a special interest in the book's setting and time period will find the story a rewarding one. Recommended .

Overall Book Score: good