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Insightful,
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The Book of Aron: A novel
by Jim Shepard

Published: 2015-05-12
Hardcover : 272 pages
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Recommended to book clubs by 2 of 2 members
The acclaimed National Book Award finalist—“one of the United States’ finest writers,” according to Joshua Ferris, “full of wit, humanity, and fearless curiosity”—now gives us a novel that will join the short list of classics about children caught up in the Holocaust.

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Introduction

The acclaimed National Book Award finalist—“one of the United States’ finest writers,” according to Joshua Ferris, “full of wit, humanity, and fearless curiosity”—now gives us a novel that will join the short list of classics about children caught up in the Holocaust.

Aron, the narrator, is an engaging if peculiar and unhappy young boy whose family is driven by the German onslaught from the Polish countryside into Warsaw and slowly battered by deprivation, disease, and persecution. He and a handful of boys and girls risk their lives by scuttling around the ghetto to smuggle and trade contraband through the quarantine walls in hopes of keeping their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters alive, hunted all the while by blackmailers and by Jewish, Polish, and German police, not to mention the Gestapo.

When his family is finally stripped away from him, Aron is rescued by Janusz Korczak, a doctor renowned throughout prewar Europe as an advocate of children’s rights who, once the Nazis swept in, was put in charge of the Warsaw orphanage. Treblinka awaits them all, but does Aron manage to escape—as his mentor suspected he could—to spread word about the atrocities? 
Jim Shepard has masterfully made this child’s-eye view of the darkest history mesmerizing, sometimes comic despite all odds, truly heartbreaking, and even inspiring. Anyone who hears Aron’s voice will remember it forever.

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Discussion Questions

Suggested by Members

What can we learn from this novel as it pertains to the immigrant and displaced persons situation today?
Can the concept of evil explain what happened in Warsaw?
How does the child-as-narrator device make this such a powerful novel?
by sriley (see profile) 07/12/16

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  "The Book of Aron: A Novel"by Sandra R. (see profile) 07/12/16

The story of the Warsaw ghetto told through the eyes of a young boy, Aron Rozycki. This novel recounts human frailty, resilience, and moral heroism, and cruelty. There is the black humor of those trapped... (read more)

 
  "Revealing, poignant perspective on the Holocaust from the eyes of a child."by Gail R. (see profile) 02/13/16

The Book of Aron: A Novel, by Jim Shepard, author; Michael Goldstrom, narrator
This novel is written from the eye of a child, but this book is not for children. In a straightforward voice,
... (read more)

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