And both emerged from the war scarred and damaged and only able to move forward by putting the past in a box, literally in Gemma’s case. Both loved men who died young and before that love could mature. Both nearly died in Nazi death camps yet escaped just in the nick of time. Both lost their homes and families to war. The kiss they shared, however platonic, brought the two of them back to life as different people, as new people, as braver people. Gemma and Josef are both Sleeping Beauty in a way. Yolen confronts the deeply tragic events of the Holocaust with lyrical prose and rich characterizations that tell a tale of good and evil, hope and despair.” (via Goodreads) My Thoughts Yolen’s graceful retelling of the German folktale of “Briar Rose”-known to some as “Sleeping Beauty”-sets the story amid forests patrolled by the German army during World War II. Her vow sends Becca on a remarkable journey to uncover the truth of Gemma’s astonishing claim: I am Briar Rose. Becca would have sworn the stories were made up, but on her deathbed Gemma extracts from Becca a promise to fulfill three impossible requests: find the castle, find the prince, and find the spell-maker. And in that place of death, Briar Rose is plunged into a deep sleep…Įver since she was a child, Rebecca has been enchanted by her grandmother Gemma’s stories of Briar Rose. Corrupted by dark deeds and choked by a poisonous mist, the castle will soon come to be known as Chelmno extermination camp. (Sept.“ In the heat of midsummer 1942, deep in a forest in the heart of Poland, Briar Rose arrives at a castle that has fallen into the hands of an evil army.
She handles a difficult subject with finesse in a book that should be required reading for anyone who is tempted to dismiss fantasy as a frivolous genre. By interpolating Gemma's vivid and imaginative story into the larger narrative, Yolen has created an engrossing novel. To discover the facts behind Gemma's story, Rebecca travels to Poland, the setting for the book's most engrossing scenes and its most interesting, best-developed characters. Rebecca Berlin, a young woman who has grown up hearing her grandmother Gemma tell an unusual and frightening version of the Sleeping Beauty legend, realizes when Gemma dies that the fairy tale offers one of the very few clues she has to her grandmother's past. Yolen takes the story of Briar Rose (commonly known as Sleeping Beauty) and links it to the Holocaust-a far-from-obvious connection that she makes perfectly convincing. This is one of the series's most ambitious efforts, and only a writer as good as Yolen ( Sister Light, Sister Dark ) could bring it off. Windling's Fairy Tale series has produced several excellent fantasy novels inspired by classic fairy tales.
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