Once

Title: Once
Author: Morris Gleitzman
Publisher: The Penguin Group
Publication Year: 2006
Genre: Historical Fiction | YA
Rating: 5

Suddenly I’m thinking of another story. The one Mum and Dad told me about why I had to stay at the orphanage. They said it was so I could go to  school there while they travelled to fix up their business. They told it so well, that story, I believed it for three years and eight months. That story saved my life.

If you don’t know by now, I am a big history lover. So, when I came across this book I brought it without a second thought and I have to say I’m glad I did. I loved, loved, loved this book! It was the title of the book that first drew me in, normally I pick a book up based on the front cover, and if I’m honest the front cover was nothing special but the title stood out like a sore thumb. The book itself was quite short, I picked up thinking ‘was it worth writing it’ and by gosh was it. There are certain books that once you’ve read them, just stick with you. This is one of those books.

I think I picked it up for the general fiction section, but after reading it I realised it was for younger readers. I think I read somewhere that the author is a children’s author, but don’t let that stop you from reading it. The book was probably a bit simple when it came to sentence structure and wording but with the content of the book, as in the actual story itself, I don’t think it needed complex words and such – in fact I’d even go as far as saying I think that would distract the reader from the actual story itself.

Without wishing to give too many spoilers away, the book is about a young Jewish boy, who lived in Poland, and his journey to find his parents during the Holocaust. Just from the information I’ve given you, you can probably imagine it’s not going to be easy.

The narrator is a young boy called Felix. Personally I find child narrators fascinating, they come with an innocence, a type of naivety that we can’t get from adult narrators. It’s refreshing. I mean, obviously this isn’t always the case but it was in the book. Felix was so naive to what was happening, I think this made the book more hard hitting, because you realise this would have been the case for most of the children during the war. They wouldn’t have understood what was happening or why it was happening. As we went on this journey with Felix though, we watched as his innocence and naivety started to fade away. He started taking on tasks that no child should have to do, but again it made you realise, well this probably actually happened.

It’s definitely different to your average book. There was times Felix had me laughing and times (more times than I’d like to admit) where he had me crying. I still don’t really know what age range the book is aimed for but I’m 19 and I can tell you I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and can’t wait to read the next book.