Home
About Linda’s Current Book:
The Night of the Burning: Devorah’s Story
Reading level: All Ages
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (September 5, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0374364192
Ordering: Booksense
Devorah’s world is shattered by the tragedies of post-Great War Europe: gas poisoning, famine, typhoid, and influenza. Then comes the Night of the Burning, when Cossacks provoke Christian Poles to attack their Jewish neighbors. In 1920, eleven-year-old Devorah and her little sister, Nechama, are the sole survivors of their community. Salvation arrives in the unlikely form of a South African philanthropist named Isaac Ochberg, who invited Devorah and Nechama to join his group of two hundred orphans in their journey to safety in South Africa. Although reluctant to leave her homeland, and afraid to forget her family, Devorah has no option but to join her sister, who insists on going to the new country. There Devorah is dealt the greatest blow — Nechama is adopted and taken away from her. In the end, though, Devorah realizes that she is not solely responsible for keeping the past alive, and that she will not betray her beloved parents when she is adopted herself — and finds happiness again.
Author Bio
Linda Press Wulf grew up in South Africa, worked as a book editor and freelance writer in Toronto, and then moved to Israel, where she met her husband, Devorah’s son Stanley. She now lives with her husband and their sons, Ami and Yoni, in Berkeley, California.
Summary of Awards and Reviews
Awards
A Booksense Winter Children’s Pick
A California Writers Club First Prize for children’s fiction
Selected for the New York Public Library’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
Selected by the Forward’s reviewer for “Best Children’s Books of 2006″
A Sydney Taylor Book Award Honor Book
A Sydney Taylor Manuscript Award
Reviews
“An insightful exploration of the effects of traumatic experiences, and an ultimately hopeful portrait of a young girl . . . [A] masterful job of showing the complexity of relationships among religious and ethnic groups in [South Africa and Poland] . . . The relationships between the protagonist, her adoptive parents, and their domestic worker are particularly well realized. However, the light that shines through this book is the carefully imagined and described process of painful but ultimately positive personal growth that Devorah experiences.”
-School Library Journal
“[T]he story is gripping . . . The history of persecution and immigration will echo with many American families.” -Hazel Rochman, Booklist
“Heartbreaking and poignant with a touching, positive conclusion . . . A haunting work of historical fiction” -Kirkus Reviews
“Devorah’s narration alternates between flashbacks to life in the sisters’ Polish village of Domachevo and their later experiences as orphans, and both tales are equally touching and engrossing; her observations of the way black South Africans are accorded underclass status within their own country leads to provocative comparisons with her own sudden class reversal as a member of a relatively privileged white community.” -Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“With bittersweet overtones, it reminds the reader of human savagery yet also shows the caring strength of one man and the power of sisterly ties.” - selected and reviewed by Lesley Agnew, leading independent bookseller, for “Teenage Previews for March-June,” The Bookseller, U.K.
“A simply written, but extremely powerful, novel . . . Linda Press Wulf displays great skill in her poignant handling of one of the darkest periods of 20th century history. The two sisters at the heart of her story are drawn with remarkable sympathy and understanding . . . [A] very impressive achievement, one which succeeds in conveying to young readers some notion of the depths of evil to which humanity can sink, but at the same time demonstrating to them the strengths of resilience, tolerance and love.” -Robert Dunbar, Children’s Book Reviewer, The Irish Times
