by Lila Perl
“This gripping memoir is written in spare, powerful prose that vividly depicts the endless degradation and humiliation suffered by the Holocaust’s innocent victims, as well as the unending horror of life in the camps. It’s also an ennobling account of the triumph of the human spirit, as seen through a child’s eyes.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A harrowing and often moving account.”
—School Library Journal
“Amid a growing number of memoirs about the Holocaust, this book warrants attention both for the uncommon experiences it records and for the fullness of the record.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Perl collaborates with the three surviving members of the Blumenthal family to tell their moving story. In 1939, four-year-old Marion was interned with her family at the Westerbork camp in Holland; five years later they were imprisoned in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs, the narrative is interspersed with facts about the rise of Hitler and the progress of the war.”
—The Horn Book
“Lazan’s recollections, along with occasional quotes from her mother, are intertwined with Perl’s background narrative to make a smooth factual flow. There’s no hint of over-dramatization here; the tone is, if anything, understated, in a story carried by the momentum of history itself. Two inserts of the family and historical photos intensify the poignancy of the account.”
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
CREDITS
Cover photograph copyright © 2016 by Karina Vegas/Arcangel, TNPhotographer/Shutterstock.com and in-art/Shutterstock.com
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
COPYRIGHT
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: here, here (William O. McWorkman), here and here; National Archives: here, here and here; Yad Vashem: here, here; YIVO: here. All other photographs are supplied by Marion Blumenthal Lazan.
FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES: A TRUE STORY OF THE HOLOCAUST. Text copyright © 1996, 2016 by Marion Blumenthal Lazan and the Estate of Lila Perl. First hardcover edition published by Greenwillow Books in 1996. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016946899
ISBN 978-0-06-248996-8 (twentieth anniversary paperback)
EPub Edition © September 2016 ISBN 9780062475749
16 17 18 19 20 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Greenwillow Books
REVISED PAPERBACK EDITION, 2016
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