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Children's Fiction General

Good-bye Marianne

A Story of Growing Up in Nazi Germany

by (author) Irene N. Watts

illustrated by Kathryn E. Shoemaker

Publisher
Tundra
Initial publish date
Aug 2008
Category
General, Prejudice & Racism, Holocaust
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780887768309
    Publish Date
    Aug 2008
    List Price
    $14.99

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Where to buy it

Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels

  • Age: 9 to 12
  • Grade: 4 to 7

Description

A heartbreaking story of loss and love.

As autumn turns toward winter in 1938 Berlin, life for Marianne Kohn, a young Jewish girl, begins to crumble. First there was the burning of the neighbourhood shops. Then her father, a mild-mannered bookseller, must leave the family and go into hiding. No longer allowed to go to school or even sit in a café, Marianne’s only comfort is her beloved mother. Things are bad, but could they get even worse? Based on true events, this fictional account of hatred and racism speaks volumes about both history and human nature.

About the authors

In 1968 Irene N. Watts came to Canada from Britain, where she had arrived thirty years earlier from Germany, via Kindertransport. She is a writer/playwright, theatre director, and educator. Her plays for young audiences have been widely produced. Awards include a Vancouver Theatre Alliance Jessie Richardson for Goodbye Marianne (Scirocco Drama and Anchorage Press, U.S.); the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People; the Isaac Frischwasser Memorial Award (Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards, 1999 and 2001); the Government of Alberta Achievement Award for Outstanding Service to Drama. Irene is a Lifetime Member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Recent publications include Tapestry of Hope: Holocaust Writing for Young People, compiled with Lillian Boraks-Nemetz (Tundra Books).

Irene N. Watts' profile page

Kathryn E. Shoemaker is the illustrator of many books for children, among them A Telling Time, My Animal Friends and Floyd the Flamingo and His Flock of Friends for Tradewind Books. She teaches children’s illustration at Langara College in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Kathryn E. Shoemaker's profile page

Awards

  • Nominated, Silver Birch Award for Fiction

Editorial Reviews

“Watts’s book . . . succeeds because it leaves readers wanting urgently to know what happened next.” — Quill and Quire

“. . . an extremely poignant and moving account . . .”
Winnipeg Free Press

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