Fighting is a way of life for Moshe Wisniak. As a boy from a very poor neighborhood in Warsaw, he can't run away when Polish kids attack the Jews, because his legs are weak. So he learns to use his fists, his head and other weapons to defend himself and his brothers. When the family moves to Paris in 1929, everyone finds work and life improves slowly. Moshe, now Maurice, is a leather worker and a young husband. At a Jewish sports club, he takes up boxing, and becomes an amateur flyweight. But the war comes to Paris, and by 1942, the French police round up foreign Jews and the Germans deport them by the hundreds every day. They send Maurice to the death camp at Auschwitz. In the camp, SS officers sense Maurice's strength. They command him to box against a dying prisoner. Now Maurice is faced with an impossible moral dilemma: kill the prisoner or be killed by the SS for refusing to obey them. Or will he find a way out?Translated from French by award-winning author Jean-Jacques Greif, The Fighter isn't simply another book about the Holocaust. It is a book about a hero who discovers the death-defying power of his own humanity.From School Library JournalGrade 9 Up–Following his emigration from Warsaw to Paris in 1929, at age 14, Moshe adopts the French name Maurice. Within six years, he establishes a new life with a job, wife, and child in a city displaying less anti-Semitism than the city of his childhood. But his world is about to change again when the Nazis overtake Paris and he is deported, first to a work camp and then to Auschwitz. Moshe draws strength and emotional perseverance from his amateur-boxing hobby, using his skills and techniques to outsmart or even withstand the brutal beatings and long hours of hard labor with minimal nourishment. Told in first person, this novel is a day-by-day account, with graphically detailed descriptions of the cruelty and inhumanity created in a prison/slave environment with its own hierarchy pitting stronger Jews and other prisoners against weaker ones and overseen by merciless German commandos. Ultimately, the adage of survival of the fittest is clearly displayed here as Moshe's story, based on a real survivor's experience, is delineated, ironically negating Hitler's Final Solution. In the end, however, Greif reminds readers that one not only needed emotional and physical strength but also a whole lot of luck and cleverness to be able to resist and emerge from the torturous nightmare of the camps. Tough, realistic reading with some raw language.–Rita Soltan, Youth Services Consultant, West Bloomfield, MI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistElie Wiesel in Night (1960), Primo Levi in Survival in Auschwitz (1960), and Anita Lobel in No Pretty Pictures (1998) wrote with unsparing truth about their experiences in the Nazi death camps, and their classic memoirs bear witness to both the horror and the humanity that gave them strength to go on. This novel, which includes many more gruesome particulars, may be too much for some readers. Must we know what it was really like to sift through the piles of corpses, and see eyes that have jumped out of their sockets? The son of an Auschwitz survivor, Greif grew up in France, hearing about cattle cars and poison gas before he heard fairy tales, and for this novel he draws on the experiences of his father's friend in the camps, a Polish Jew whom Greif calls Moshe Wisniak. Wisniak works in the gas chambers, and his present-tense narrative vividly describes the atrocities as well as the importance of courage, friendship, and, especially, luck in the fight for survival. A champion boxer, though small in stature, Wisniak is set up to entertain camp guards by fighting a dying prisoner. When the time comes to end the fight, however, the small boxer refuses to deliver the killing blow. In a note, Greif calls Wisniak a hero, a kind of Don Quixote figure, who fought back. Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 71
Captain Gringo in a gunman's graveyard in Guatamala!The curvaceous blonde twins named Flora and Dora need a troubleshooter to "shoot some trouble." Gringo's their man—in more ways that one—only now these two luscious lovelies have got him trapped between the Mexican army on one side and the black-hearted rebel leader El Caballero Blanco on the other. But even worse, Gringo is boxed in next to a lava-spewing volcano! The molten rock is hot, all right—but not nearly so hot as the nympho nurse who really knows how to make a man's temperature rise! Views: 71
Presenting Artie Cohen, Reggie Nadelson's streetsmart, good-looking New York cop, with a supporting cast that includes Artie's glamorous girl Lily Hanes, and his gnarly superior Sonny Lippert. Russian by birth, Artie has a taste for girls and jazz and a secret past. In Red Mercury Blues he has scarcely returned from a month's leave and thoughts of quitting his job when he becomes involved with a case that drags him painfully back into that past.His investigations take him first into the heart of the Brighton Beach Russian mafia, and then deeper into the terrifying world of atomic smuggling and the secrets of the lethal but elusive substance known as Red Mercury. Views: 71
Three years ago, Alison disappeared after a slumber party, not to be seen since. Her friends at the elite Pennsylvania school mourned her, but they also breathed secret sighs of relief. Each of them guarded a secret that only Alison had known. Now they have other dirty little secrets, secrets that could sink them in their gossip-hungry world. When each of them begins receiving anonymous emails and text messages, panic sets in. Are they being betrayed by some one in their circle? Worse yet: Is Alison back? A strong launch for a suspenseful series. Views: 70
Life is pretty sweet for Even Hyde. Despite his parents' divorce in 2001, he's doing just fine, having chosen to live with his richly successful father in Newport Beach, California. When not spending 'bonding' time with his partially absent father, he has his run of the house, where he more or less comes and goes as he pleases.Even's older brother Gabe continues to live in Cucamonga with their emotionally unstable mother. Though he feels discarded and left behind, Gabe visits Even and their father on the weekends.Even doesn't seem too worried about Gabe's quick-to-ignite temper or his evolving addiction to skipping school and smoking weed.But then Gabe commits a crime so unbelievably heinous that Even can't forgive his own flesh and blood for it. In his personal recounting for THE LITTLE BROTHER,Even shares the events immediately following his brother and two of his friends savagely gang raping (while videotaping) an unconscious girl. When Gabe somehow ends up... Views: 70
Dead guests. Carb-deprived yogis. And a killer on the loose.... It's summertime on Cranberry Island, and things are heating up for innkeeper Natalie Barnes. She may be hosting a yoga retreat, but things at the Gray Whale Inn are anything but Zen. Between juggling dietary restrictions and managing flaring tempers, Natalie's about ready for a retreat of her own... far away from the inn's fit but finicky guests. Unfortunately, there's no reprieve on the island. The lobster co-op and pier are under threat once again, this time by a new arrival whose vision for Cranberry Island looks more like a spread in Coastal Living than a quaint Maine fishing village. When the instigator turns up dead next to the co-op and the police start fishing for suspects, Natalie's dear friend Claudette is the one they haul up. Will Natalie trap the killer in time? Or will she be next? Views: 70
True Beauty is the second book in the Beautiful Ugly book series. Layla, Kacie and Envy maintain their tight bond of friendship. They are determined to learn from the mistakes of their past so they can boldly step into their futures. Layla's drastic blessing through tragedy opens doors that she never thought possible. She's determined to live her life to the fullest, but as she moves forward with a new body and a new man, she forgets who used to be the most important man in her life–God.After yet another heartbreak, and with sometimes wavering support from Layla and Envy, Kacie tries hard to pick up the broken pieces of her life so that she can concentrate on raising her seven kids as a single mom.While there's no mistaking Envy's outer beauty, she comes to believe the only way to have a chance to give and receive true love is by exposing the horrid secret of her past. But Envy is terrified of the consequences that she might have to face if she chooses to do... Views: 70
Like the wildly popular Choose Your Own Adventure tales of our childhood—only with a 20-something twist—Big Night Out is the kind of book readers will delve into more than once in their sometimes frustrating, sometimes victorious, pursuit of their quest. In Big Night Out you must meet up with your current love interest at a party. In order to get to this party, you must track down one of a number of friends who were actually invited and figure out a way to tag along. Some friends are more cooperative than others; after all, each of them has an agenda of his or her own.Likewise, the city you live in poses its own challenges; you may encounter pick-pockets, insane taxi drivers, difficult bouncers, and a full cast of "extras." Add to that the practical necessities such as securing food lest you pass out from drinking too much, and Big Night Out could end up being a night out on the town from hell—depending on what you, the... Views: 70
Product DescriptionWhile exploring the unused sections of the Ancient city of Atlantis, Major John Sheppard and Dr. Rodney McKay stumble on a recording device that contains a new Stargate address. The address leads them to a world with a mysterious ruined city that may be part of an Ancient repository, or it may just be yet another trap for the unwary.
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