The War Within These Walls Review by Dana Williams

1.  BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sax, Aline. The War Within These Walls. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-8028-5428-5. 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY
Misha and his family have been forced to live in a restricted area of Warsaw in 1939 by German soldiers because they are Jewish. At first, because his father is a doctor, and his family is of means, the teenaged Misha watches what happens to his people in the ghetto. The poor are the first to die, and then when food, clothing, and resources are scarce, everyone becomes poor and starved. Misha feels a drive in his gut to help his family survive, especially as he watches his mother waste away, starving in bed. But the German soldiers are relentless, and he knows if he is caught, they will not hesitate to kill him.  

3.  CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Although The War Within These Walls is considered a teen book of fiction, it is an illustrated text that is a stunning example about how humans, no matter how old they are, never really outgrow the power of the picture book. Author Aline Sax and illustrator Caryl Strzelecki have created a powerfully moving piece of literature about the horrors that befell the Jewish people during WWII at the hands of the Nazis. The use of black and white photos, black and white pages, and simple language paint a picture of stark desperation and the violence in the Warsaw Ghetto as people were separated from their families, starved, and shot or beaten in the street. Sax plays the emotion with an accuracy and authenticity that perpetuates the reader forward: "The tension slowly stretched out. Until it was ready to snap" (30). 

Readers hope for the best for Misha and his family, but Sax and Strzelecki also portray the sobering reality of life in the ghetto. The daily violence ensured most people would stay silent and not act out against the Germans out of fear of retribution on their own families. "The Germans laughed while the bystanders remained silent" (8). But in death, privilege didn't matter. All that mattered was who was breathing and who was not as dead bodies were stripped of their clothes and left in the streets to be carried away because "Clothes were for the living" (48). 

The accurate portrayal of the depravity of humanity during the war isn't a celebration of the ultimate resistance by the Jewish people, although in the notes to the book, the author recognizes that for four weeks 750 Jewish people were able to fend off 2,000 German soldiers. Instead, it raises a lot of questions about the war for global readers like: Where were the allies? Why wasn't the treatment of Jewish people enough to cause worldwide involvement sooner? What would we have done differently if we were suddenly jailed, beaten, murdered, and starved by a foreign country? 

4. AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPTS
ALA Mildred L. Batchelder Honor, 2014
USBBY, Outstanding International Books
National Council for the Social Studies and Children's Book Council, Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
Publishers Weekly, Best Books of the Year — Teen
Kirkus Review, Best Books of the Year
Jewish Book Council, National Jewish Book Award

From School Library Journal (March 2014)
"The combination of illustration and the author's sparse prose make this a good choice for reluctant readers and an outstanding example of Holocaust fiction."  

From Jewish Book Council (2014)
"This hard-hitting saga will remain in the reader's mind long after the close of the last page."

5. CONNECTIONS
Sax's book reads a bit like a diary of Misha's every day life in the ghetto. Other Jewish people in history have their diaries published afterwards. The most famous is probably the Diary of Anne Frank. How do those real journals compare to Misha's fictional narration of his experience in Warsaw. Have students read both and compare and contrast. 

One of the connections students may make from reading this book is the issue of building walls. There were walls built around the ghetto to keep all the Jewish people together and separate from the outside world. There was a wall between East and West Germany. A boundary wall exists in Israel. The American Government is currently discussing building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Understanding the history of erecting walls and the political and social ramifications of them, is an important aspect of world history, and can bridge the past to the present to bring a larger cultural understanding to the reading of The War Within These Walls.