43. Internment by Samira Ahmed

listened on Audible
read by Soneela Nankani
Unabridged audio (11:17)
2019 Hachette Audio/Little Brown Books for Young Readers
387 pgs.
YA CRF (I cannot call it anything else!)
Finished Sat. May 11, 2019
Goodreads rating:  4.05 - 2128 ratings
My rating: 2
Setting: Contemporary California

First line/s:  "I strain to listen for boots on the pavement.  Stomping.  Marching."

My comments:  Well, I'm going to go against the general flow of raving reviews for this book.  I had many problems with it and I'm not exactly sure how to put my finger on all of them, but I'll try.  However, I do want to say that the premise of this book is spectacular, and very, very timely. 
          I think the author tried, but her writing style and character development didn't work.  And there were so many things included that were hard to believe and so many things not included that needed to be.  (A few possible small spoilers follow.)  Layla's insta-relationship with Jake?  Smuggling her boyfriend in and out of a prison camp - more than once?  NO adults other than an 80-year-old woman with any gumption to say or do anything?  Spending copious time with a prison guard, including in a female prisoner's bedroom, amid cameras and drones and constant surveillance without ever being spotted?  Unfortunately I could go on and on and I haven't even touched on the character development!  Layla's (or the author's) long, drawn out thinking about situations actually work to slow down any action that takes place.  Too much tell, not nearly enough show.  Again, a great premise for a book, but its execution didn't work at all for me. Big sigh.

Goodreads synopsis:  Rebellions are built on hope. 
          Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens.
          With the help of newly made friends also trapped within the internment camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp's Director and his guards.
          Heart-racing and emotional, Internment challenges readers to fight complicit silence that exists in our society today. 

PICTURE BOOK - Let the Celebrations Begin! by Margaret Wild

A Story of  Hope for the Liberation
illustrated by Julie Vivas
for Older Kids
1991, 2013 Candlewick Press

HC $16.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.10

My rating: 5 stars!

1^st line/s:  "We are planning a party, a very special party, the women and I.  My name is Miriam, and this is where I live.  Hut 18, bed 22."

My comments:  Not based on a true story, but that possibility becomes more real after reading the quote from Antique Toys and Their Background: "A small collection of stuffed toys has been preserved which were made by Polish women in Belsen for the first children's party held after the liberation." This is a powerful book. Words and illustrations couldn't work more beautifully together. It doesn't TELL a story of the Holocaust, it SHOWS it. Brilliantly, with a quiet serenity that makes it over-the-top-special. Not for little ones.

Goodreads:  Miriam lives in hut 18, bed 22. She has little to eat and nothing to play with, but she can remember what it was like before, when she had her own food, her own bed, and her very own toys. As World War II nears an end, everyone says the soldiers are coming, so Miriam joins the women in planning a celebration. Every night, while the guards sleep, they busy themselves crafting toys out of scraps of their clothing to surprise the younger children. Based on a reference to a small collection of stuffed toys made by women in Belsen for the first party held after the liberation of the camp, this new edition of Let the Celebrations Begin!, originally published in 1996, is an affecting story 
of human survival.