Book Description
for Always Remember Me by Marisabina Russo
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
Each Sunday Rachel and her family go to her grandmother Oma’s for dinner. After the “hugs and hellos” and “chicken and challah,” Rachel and Oma always look at Oma’s photo albums. The photos and stories that tell of Oma’s life in Germany before coming to America are part of the weekly ritual. But this Sunday is different. This Sunday, Oma doesn’t close the album where she usually does. “ 'I think you are old enough to hear the rest of the story now,’ she says, and pulls me closer.” Oma tells of what happened when the Nazis came into power in Germany. Of how she and her family members began to fear for their safety, and their lives. Of how some fled and others were not able to. Of how some survived, and others did not. A dramatically different and highly personal book from author/artist Marisabina Russo is based on Russo’s own family history: she was the little girl in the story. Russo uses muted tones to recreate some of her family photographs as the album pictures in the story. Some of those actual photographs are reproduced on the endpapers of an affecting picture book that is told with both honesty and the restraint required in covering this topic for younger children. (Ages 7–10)
CCBC Choices 2006 . © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2006. Used with permission.