by Jim Shepard
First published 2015
Aron lives as a peculiar, unhappy boy when German forces push his family from rural Poland into Warsaw. The family faces slow destruction from hunger, sickness, and Nazi persecution. Aron joins other children in dangerous smuggling runs through the ghetto's quarantine barriers. They trade contraband to keep their families breathing while dodging blackmailers, Jewish police, Polish police, German police, and the Gestapo. When the Nazis strip away his family, Aron finds shelter with Janusz Korczak. This doctor built his reputation across prewar Europe defending children's rights. The Nazis forced him to run Warsaw's orphanage. Treblinka waits for everyone in the ghetto. Korczak believes Aron might slip away to tell the world what happened here. Jim Shepard creates a boy's view of history's darkest chapter that grips readers with unexpected moments of humor amid the horror.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, world-war-ii, jewish
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, survival
Setting: Poland, Warsaw, Treblinka
Period: World War II
260 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: child-death, death, violence