{"id":36036,"date":"2019-03-20T22:44:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T02:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36036"},"modified":"2019-06-26T18:47:42","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T22:47:42","slug":"review-of-what-the-night-sings-by-vesper-stamper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36036","title":{"rendered":"Review of What the Night Sings, by Vesper Stamper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What the Night Sings<\/em><\/p>\n

by Vesper Stamper<\/p>\n

Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. 266 pages.
\nStarred Review
\nReview written May 27, 2018.
\n2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out<\/a>:
\n#2 General Teen Fiction<\/p>\n

Wow. This is a Holocaust novel. They tend to be powerful. But not all of them have me closing the book saying, \u201cWow\u201d \u2013 stunned by hope.<\/p>\n

To be fair, the book begins as World War II is finishing. Gerta Rausch is in Bergen-Belsen as the British are liberating the camp, holding her bunkmate, sick with typhus, in her arms:<\/p>\n

The soldiers begin removing the dead. There are so many. How could I not have noticed them lying right next to me?<\/p>\n

And suddenly \u2013 Rivkah, too, is gone.<\/p>\n

I feel her final breath wisp across my lips. They pull her from me, but I can\u2019t let her go. She is my last connection to the living world. I clutch her arm, her hand, her fingers. I sing the lullaby after her, my foster mother. I know no one else in all of Bergen-Belsen, either from Auschwitz or Theresienstadt. Everyone has come and gone, piles of shells pulled in and out of waves, and I\u2019m still here, a skeleton of a sea creature, dropped in this tide pool, living, watching, still living.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This book is about living \u2013 and trying to figure out how to make a life \u2013 after the war. Gerta is sixteen years old and in a displaced persons camp on the site of the old concentration camp. Her only family \u2013 her Papa \u2013 died during the war in the furnaces.<\/p>\n

Gerta had trained to be an opera singer like her stepmother, her stepmother who watched while she and her papa were taken to the cattle cars. Gerta did manage to bring her papa\u2019s viola with her \u2013 and got assignments to play in the camp orchestras. They played while people were sorted, for life or for death.<\/p>\n

Part of the power of this book is that it includes illustrations. The book size is larger format than most novels, and many of the illustrations take up entire double-page spreads, though some are next to the text. The picture that hit me the hardest was a picture of a smokestack on the side with smoke going all the way across the top of the two pages. Those pages conclude with these words:<\/p>\n

\u201cCome with me,\u201d the woman says softly, pragmatically. \u201cYou\u2019ve been sent to the orchestra, yes? Well. Join your very lucky sisters. Music has saved your life today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s my papa?\u201d I plead with her. \u201cI want my papa!\u201d<\/p>\n

She signs and points ahead. \u201cSee that chimney?\u201d she says, still softly, but so that I will clearly understand. \u201cSee that smoke? There\u2019s your papa.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But I said that it\u2019s a book that left me with hope. Though the book does explain the dark setting, Gerta must make the hard choice to keep living. And to love. And it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n

I especially appreciated the Author\u2019s Note at the back, because it put a bow on why the book felt so applicable to my life \u2013 I, who had never experienced anything remotely like the Holocaust. She explained that in high school she developed a deep identity as a musician.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a problem with that, however. When you decide early on who you \u201ctruly are,\u201d it can trick you into thinking that you were destined to live by a certain script. And when you\u2019re out on your own and you realize that there is<\/em> no script, you might panic.<\/p>\n

Several years ago, I was rear-ended by a texting driver, which resulted in my arm being partially paralyzed. I completely lost the ability to play guitar \u2013 I had been a touring musician \u2013 and it took me a full year of rehab before I could reliably draw again. I had to relearn everything, even how to lift a fork to my mouth. This wasn\u2019t in the script.<\/em> A huge element of my deeply ingrained identity had been smashed. Like Gerta, I had hinged my future on a set of expectations, which depended on life\u2019s machine running with no glitches. Being disabled cast a pall over every area of my life: my ability to drive, hold a baby, cook, hug or shake hands, let alone create art and music. How could I live my life? Without my script, who was<\/em> I?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps that puts all the more power into Gerta\u2019s story \u2013 and the art Vesper Stamper created to go with that story.<\/p>\n

A stunning book about starting over when everything and everyone is gone. About finding joy again, about choosing life and choosing love.<\/p>\n

vesperillustration.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/what_the_night_sings.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Source: This review is based on a book sent from the publisher.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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