Ruth Franklin. Transported: How should children’s books deal with the Holocaust? New Yorker, July 23, 2018, 64-69.
I was fourteen when “the Devil’s Arithmetic” was published. Although it won numerous awards, no teacher or librarian ever gave it to me. I wish someone had, because the book speaks in a profound way to the painful paradox I felt then and still feel now: how to be an adequate witness to something I haven’t myself experienced.[p. 66]
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In this anecdote the librarian has failed, probably without ever knowing that this student needed to learn about the Holocaust.
Franklin writes that as a child she had relatives with tattoos on their arms who had survived the Holocaust, but she had little information to understand exactly what it was they had survived. She was given “The Diary of Anne Frank," an excellent book, but one that stops at a confusing place. An adult would know the implication of the Frank family being sent off to Nazi death camps. To a child the ending conceals the true atrocity.
Franklin writes that as a child she had relatives with tattoos on their arms who had survived the Holocaust, but she had little information to understand exactly what it was they had survived. She was given “The Diary of Anne Frank," an excellent book, but one that stops at a confusing place. An adult would know the implication of the Frank family being sent off to Nazi death camps. To a child the ending conceals the true atrocity.
Children are often aware of horrifying world events, but lack vocabulary or background knowledge to really understand the truth of what happened. Adults want to protect not only kids but also themselves from facing the full horror. They end up either refusing to talk about it or offering information so thoroughly sanitized that it doesn't really make sense.
“The Devil’s Arithmetic” uses fantasy as a frame to help children cope with emotionally difficult information. Some adults didn't like the use of fantasy for such a serious subject, but Franklin thinks it would have worked well for her 14-year-old self. In the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” Fred Rogers uses hand puppets to address children’s fears after the assassination of President Kennedy. Through the voice of Daniel Striped Tiger, Rogers timidly asks Lady Aberlin, “What does “assassination” mean?”
Probably Franklin never asked for book suggestions. If so, what could a librarian have done? It might have been hard to guess at this particular information need. An astute librarian who knew that there were Jewish families in the community might have made a selected list of Holocaust books for kids-- something that a kid could pick up without having to ask a scary adult. [1] But often, kids find the kind of books that adults don't quite like through word of mouth.
[1] A letter to the editor in the August 6 & 13 issue of the New Yorker says that quite a lot of Children's literature about the Holocaust was written in Yiddish but for the most part it was never translated.
[1] A letter to the editor in the August 6 & 13 issue of the New Yorker says that quite a lot of Children's literature about the Holocaust was written in Yiddish but for the most part it was never translated.
1 comment:
Likely, the genre of children's Holocaust novels was not around yet when Ruth Franklin was a child. I grew up in the '70s and only remember Anne's diary.
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