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Table of Contents
About The Book
Edie is a talented dancer and a skilled gymnast with hopes of making the Olympic team. Between her rigorous training and her struggle to find her place in a family where she’s the daughter “with brains but no looks,” Edie’s too busy to dwell on the state of the world. But life in Hungary in 1943 is dangerous for a Jewish girl.
Just as Edie falls in love for the first time, Europe collapses into war, and Edie’s family is forced onto a train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp. Even in those darkest of moments, Edie’s beloved, Eric, kindles hope. “I’ll never forget your eyes,” he tells her through the slats of the cattle car. Auschwitz is horrifying beyond belief, yet through starvation and unthinkable terrors, dreams of Eric sustain Edie. Against all odds, Edie and her sister Magda survive, thanks to their sisterhood and sheer grit.
Edie returns home filled with grief and guilt. Survival feels more like a burden than a gift—until Edie recognizes that she has a choice. She can’t change the past, but she can choose how to live and even to love again.
Product Details
- Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (October 1, 2024)
- Length: 192 pages
- ISBN13: 9781665952576
- Ages: 12 - 99
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Raves and Reviews
★ “Eger’s present-tense stream-of-consciousness narrative allows readers to experience the brutality of the Nazis but also the cooperation and encouragement among the inmates and the events that gave her postwar life meaning. A luminous memoir of human resilience.”
– Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
★ “Eger pares down The Choice, her National Jewish Book Award–winner and New York Times best-selling combination Holocaust memoir and self-help book, into a sensitive, thought-provoking account for teens. . . . Impactful for all readers, especially history enthusiasts or fellow trauma survivors.”
– Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Eger beautifully portrays liberation and returning to the world of the living. Dancing is the thread that holds her life together . . . Eger’s reflections of suffering and seeds of hope are directly and beautifully wrought; the author’s note reaches out to readers who are coping with pain and suffering in this modern age. . . . this is an important personal telling of Holocaust suffering and survival.”
– School Library Journal
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High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Ballerina of Auschwitz eBook 9781665952576
- Author Photo (jpg): Edith Eva Eger Jordan Engle(0.1 MB)
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