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Rachel Lincoln English
Personal Response
No Pretty Picture? No Pretty Review
Have you ever felt bad about something, everyone else seemed to look down upon? Have you ever had to pretend to be something you weren�t? Have you ever ignored the past and everything you once used to know or have or were? The biography written by Anita Lobel about Anita Lobel, No Pretty Picture illustrated a beautiful colorful canvas of all that and more. While this book was slightly bland and painted an almost inaccurate picture of the Holocaust, it was an interesting book that told of the personalized experiences of the author herself. Because the literature was in depth with gory details about a specific person, it made the entire story much more interesting and captivating. While reading the book, you always have in the back of your mind, the idea that the words you read are true actual events.
The book tells the story of Anita Lobel, a woman who lived through the Holocaust and endured the endless taunting by people that did not respect her Judaic religion. In chronological order, the book tells of the events that occurred from the beginning of the Holocaust to what happened to her way after it ended. It shows Anita Lobel�s interactions with different types of people during her adventures of prejudice and her journey for safety and freedom. Very seemingly influential, Anita allowed other people�s ideas and opinions persuade her to feel the same.
No Pretty Picture caused me to overflow with both positive and negatives opinions on it. What I did not like about this particular book was how they made the Holocaust out to be like. I�ve heard about the Holocaust, of course we all have. We know what a horrifying event it was and what millions of people had to go through. In the book though, what Anita Lobel wrote about her participation in the Holocaust did not seem all that bad. It seemed that she got off fairly well considering all the chaos that was going on around them. If what she went through really was the awful punishment all Jews had to go through, then the author did not paint a good clear picture of it. The imagery could be greatly improved. It was a good idea to speak up about their experiences, but she should have mentioned some of the turmoil other Jews were going through at that time of hardship. The reader should be able to paint a picture in their head just exactly how bad the Holocaust was. Quite frankly, because the book only spoke of the author and her family, who got by pretty well, it made the whole event, the Holocaust, actually not seem all that bad after reading the book and we all know that would be far from true.
Aside from the misleading feeling of the book that allowed the reader to put the Holocaust more lightly than it really was, it was nicely organized and easy to follow. The chronological order allowed the reader to see how things progressed over time. How her feelings about herself and her religion deteriorated. How her feelings towards her family changed by the end of the book. It was really quite interesting reading about how the events around you can morph your outlook and the way you feel about things.
No Pretty Picture, a specific, personalized book, very interesting although in my opinion, slightly inaccurate, would be fine for children of early adolescence or late childhood. Naturally I would recommend a book about the Holocaust to the older teens because there is possibilities that it might have graphic details that might bother the young ones but in this particular book, it appears to be almost violence free and in my opinion, safe for the younger ones. I would not recommend the adults to read this book for it was slightly bland and they might not be able to keep their interest on the book. I recommend anyone interested about one family�s personal experiences in the Holocaust, not as a whole, to read this book. It is not that I did not like the book, I just believe it can be greatly improved. Overall, No Pretty Picture was fine.