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  • The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Farewells
  • Hope Morrison
Levy, Debbie. The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Farewells. Disney/Hyperion, 2010 [144p]. illus. with photographs ISBN 978-1-4231-2901-1 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-7

In 1930s Germany, it was common for young girls to keep poesiealbums, or autograph books, in which friends could write poems, draw pictures, or offer wishes to the owner. Levy has based this novel in verse on the actual poesiealbum kept by her mother, Jutta Salzberg, when she was twelve years old. Each chapter includes a facsimile image of a page from the album in a small decorative vignette, a translation, and a poem, written by Levy, which offers a fictionalized reflection on the circumstances referenced in a given entry; some chapters also include entries from Jutta's diary. Covering the months from January to November 1938, the album details a time of "rapidly increasing danger for Jews in Germany," and Jutta's increasing awareness of the changes affecting the lives of her and her friends from the Jewish School for Girls in Hamburg; the final entry details the Salzberg family's departure from Europe on board a ship bound for America. The free-verse interpretations, presented in Jutta's voice, generally center on big themes referenced in friends' entries (e.g., religion, family, optimism). The unusual formatting of this slim novel [End Page 344] makes it inviting and accessible to younger readers; the verse chapters are compact and literal, and the sentiments expressed within are both credibly adolescent and worldly. A lengthy afterword provides the continuation of Jutta's story as well as details about what happened to most of the friends who wrote in her book; their stories are a mixed bag of tragic and joyful, the most celebratory being the details of a reunion of seven of the girls held in the year 2000. This would work effectively as an introductory class readaloud to the era, and it would appeal to readers who like their friendship tales grounded in history and truth.

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