![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Blurb On The Back:
Based on the true story of Jeanne, an 8-year old girl who survived the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the only member of her family who did. Here her adoptive mother Hanna Jensen retells her story with a clarity and honesty that is at once moving and inspiring. It was one of the world's most recent and bloody periods of history.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
It feels churlish to say that this is an 'okay' book when it deals with a serious historical event that doesn't get a lot of 'play' in YA fiction. However, that's what it is - okay. Perhaps it's because it is dealing with recent history that makes Jansen pull her punches when it comes to describing the atrocities committed (something that's shown up by the depictions of suffering inflicted in Holocaust based novels such as The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ), but there is definitely something lacking in the text, which makes it very difficult to connect with what's happening to the young heroine.
Based on the true story of Jeanne, an 8-year old girl who survived the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the only member of her family who did. Here her adoptive mother Hanna Jensen retells her story with a clarity and honesty that is at once moving and inspiring. It was one of the world's most recent and bloody periods of history.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
It feels churlish to say that this is an 'okay' book when it deals with a serious historical event that doesn't get a lot of 'play' in YA fiction. However, that's what it is - okay. Perhaps it's because it is dealing with recent history that makes Jansen pull her punches when it comes to describing the atrocities committed (something that's shown up by the depictions of suffering inflicted in Holocaust based novels such as The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ), but there is definitely something lacking in the text, which makes it very difficult to connect with what's happening to the young heroine.
