Prisoner B-3087

The Nazis killed more than one million Jewish children and teenagers; Jack (Yanek) Gruener, who was 10 when Krakow, Poland, fell, was a rare survivor. "Survive," however, hardly seems adequate to describe what unfolds in these pages. Having lost his parents and close relatives just as he entered adolescence (Yanek has a secret bar mitzvah in a basement of the Krakow ghetto), the boy is totally alone as his life becomes a roll-call of nightmares: Trzebinia, Bir-kenau (where his arm is tattooed with the number in the book's title), Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Gross-Rosen. Yanek is finally liberated at age 16, when American soldiers arrive at Dachau. Gratz (Fantasy Baseball) has fictionalized some aspects of Gruener's life to "paint a fuller and more representative picture of the Holocaust as a whole," and this determination to be exhaustively inclusive, along with lapses into History Channel-like prose, threatens to overwhelm the story. But more often, Gratz ably conveys Yanek's incredulity ("Not long ago, all these half-dead creatures around me had been people"), fatalism, yearning, and determination in the face of the unimaginable. Ages 10-14. Agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary. (Mar.)

Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Gr 6-10--"If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more. I wouldn't have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath, or going to bed at eight o'clock every night." Yanek Gruener was 10 years old when the German army invaded Poland in 1939 and trapped his family inside the walls of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. Over the course of World War II, he saw his parents deported by the Nazis and survived 10 different concentration camps. Through Gratz's spare, persistent prose, the story of the boy's early life unfolds with the urgency and directness necessary for survivor stories. While some liberties have been taken, with the permission of Gruener and his wife, Ruth, also a survivor, the experiences and images come directly from the Grueners' collective memories of the war. An author's note provides further biographical information. A powerful story, well told.--Sara Saxton, Tuzzy Consortium Library, Barrow, AK

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Praise for Prisoner B-3087

A Junior Library Guild Selection

Golden Sower Award, 2014-2015 Winner Nebraska

Isinglass Teen Read Award, 2014-2015 Winner New Hampshire

Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award, 2014-2015 Winner Pennsylvania

Junior Book Award, 2015-2016 Winner South Carolina

Grand Canyon Reader Award, 2015-2016 Winner Arizona

Truman Readers Award, 2015-2016 Winner Missouri

Readers Choice Awards, Winner 2015-2016 Virginia

Volunteer State Book Award Winner, 2015-2016 Tennessee

"A powerful story, well told." — School Library Journal

"A bone-chilling tale not to be ignored." — Kirkus Reviews

"[A] remarkable survival story." — Booklist

"Gratz ably conveys . . . fatalism, yearning, and determination in the face of the unimaginable." — Publishers Weekly

"Heartbreaking, gripping, raw, and emotional . . . storytelling at its finest." — VOYA