Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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“It is finished. The tale is told truthfully, and truth is no heavier, no more beautiful than lies.”

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel: a novel of war and survival by Louise Murphy

October 19, 2025 by bjornsnipe Leave a Comment

Trigger warnings: child mutilation, graphic murder, dismemberment, torture, grievous and graphic depictions of wounds, profanity, graphic descriptions of nudity (including children), graphic depictions of childbirth, gas chambers, mass cremations, talk of rape in general, rape of a child shown on page. In the last few months of the Nazi’s occupation of Poland, two children are abandoned by their father and stepmother to increase the chances of all of them surviving. Left to find safety in the dense Bialowieza Forest, the two, renamed “Hansel” and “Gretel” […]

Filed Under: Fiction, History Tagged With: fairy tale reimagining, Invasion of Poland, Jewish children in the Holocaust, Louise Murphy

bjornsnipe's CBR17 Review No:135 · Genres: Fiction, History · Tags: fairy tale reimagining, Invasion of Poland, Jewish children in the Holocaust, Louise Murphy ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Hiding in plain sight.

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis by Susan Hood and Greg Dawson

December 2, 2021 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis is a romanticized look at how two Jewish girls lived when millions did not. Told in alternating voices, the Narrator, and “Anna” herself or, Zhanna Arshanskaya we learn how Zhanna and her sister Frina, were hiding in plain sight. They performed for the Nazi command, allies of the Nazi and eventually, for themselves. But no matter how much they feared being found out, betrayed by supposed friends, or their hatred of the Nazis, they always felt […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Children's Books, History, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Religion, Young Adult Tagged With: Adolph Hitler, Child musicians, Frina Arshanskaya, Greg Dawson, hitler, Holocaust, Jewish children in the Holocaust, Jewish/Jews, music, piano, Soviet Union, Susan Hood and Greg Dawson, the ravine Drobitsky Yar, Ukraine, World War II, Zhanna Arshanskaya, Zhanna Arshanskaya ("Janna") Dawson

BlackRaven's CBR13 Review No:405 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Children's Books, History, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Religion, Young Adult · Tags: Adolph Hitler, Child musicians, Frina Arshanskaya, Greg Dawson, hitler, Holocaust, Jewish children in the Holocaust, Jewish/Jews, music, piano, Soviet Union, Susan Hood and Greg Dawson, the ravine Drobitsky Yar, Ukraine, World War II, Zhanna Arshanskaya, Zhanna Arshanskaya ("Janna") Dawson ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments


Recent Comments

  • Sheila
    on I don’t do torture
    I wish I had read this review before I bought this Audible book. I am just at the halfway point...
  • bjornsnipe
    on “To be so ravenous with desperation that the only way out is complete and utter annihilation. A torpedo made of your own sharpened body.”- Senaa Ahmad (or me about wanting to quit this book)
    Thank you.
  • Maximoff
    on “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”- Oscar Wilde
    May I join you at that dinner party? This book is well worth reading.
  • Maximoff
    on Oy Vey, What Dreck.
    What to be said regarding this book you said as I agree with you about this book.
  • Maximoff
    on “To be so ravenous with desperation that the only way out is complete and utter annihilation. A torpedo made of your own sharpened body.”- Senaa Ahmad (or me about wanting to quit this book)
    Also, I appreciate your Godzilla gif as it sums up the way I felt .
See More Recent Comments »

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