Inkflower

Gr 8 Up–Based on the author’s experiences, this novel is both extremely personal and extremely universal; everyone eventually will lose someone close to them, and almost everyone eventually realizes the past is not as simple as the history books say. In 1982 Australia, 16-year-old Lisa comes to terms with both these facts when her father, after a terminal diagnosis, begins to tell the story of how he came to Australia after surviving the horrors of the Holocaust. Showing the dichotomy between the flashy 1980s and struggling WWII-era Eastern Europe allows both locales to have their own flavor and light. The way Lisa reacts to different parts of her father’s story, and how she tries to keep her own feelings about his declining health and revelations of his past from her friends for fear they won’t understand, are heartfelt. The chapters are labeled “Now” when they are told through Lisa’s eyes and “Then” when they are told in first-person through her father; the font changes during the “Now” chapters as her father’s illness takes away his ability to speak. Though readers will know the endings to the parallel stories right away, the journey shines in this novel, as well as the will and perseverance to live.