Book description
During World War II a Jewish boy is left on his own for months in a ruined house in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he must learn all the tricks of survival under constantly life-threatening conditions.
Why read it?
1 author picked The Island on Bird Street as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
"It was like living on a desert island. Instead of the sea, there were houses and people around me." Aleks, aged 11, uses a metaphor fetched from his favorite book, Robinson Crusoe, to describe his own struggle for survival. But his "island" is a ruined house in the ghetto, where he hides after having been separated from his father during a raid by the Nazis. Just as resourceful and inventive as his literary role model, Aleks manages to fend for himself while hoping for his father to return.
Uri Orlev, himself a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto and Bergen-Belsen,…
From Annika's list on The best books for children and young people about war and refugees.
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