Mapping the Bones

Yolen (The Devil's Arithmetic; Briar Rose) returns to the horrors of the Holocaust in this "Hansel and Gretel"-inspired story of cruelty, survival, and love. It begins in the Lodz ghetto, to which Jewish fourteen-year-old twins Chaim and Gittel Abromowitz have been forcibly relocated with their parents. Every knock on the door brings fear and uncertainty, and one day it means opening their tiny apartment to another family-Dr. and Mrs. Norenberg and their children, kindhearted Sophie and "bulldoggish" Bruno. Then Dr. Norenberg disappears, Mrs. Norenberg's mental health deteriorates, and the Abromowitzes receive warning of their imminent "wedding invitation" (i.e., transport to a camp). The two families plan an escape, but the Abromowitz and Norenberg children become separated from their parents. The children find themselves first with a band of Partisans in the Lagiewniki Forest and then, to their horror, in the (fictional) Sobanek forced labor camp, where they are made to build munitions for the German and Polish armies and where the twins are subjected to gruesome medical experiments. Yolen's prose is stark and accessible, with Chaim's interspersed, lyrical poetry serving as a reminder that art can be a means of resistance and survival. The "Gittel Remembers" sections, narrated by the character as an adult, provide some relief in foreshadowing survival and hope for the twins' eventual futures. An appended author's note tells more about the real-life history and about Yolen's research. elissa gershowitz