The Mascot
By Mark Kurzem

When a death squad massacred his mother and fellow villagers, five-year-old Alex escaped, hiding in the freezing Russian forest until he was picked up by a group of Latvian SS soldiers. Alex was able to hide his Jewish identity and win over the soldiers, becoming their mascot and an honorary “corporal” in the SS with his own uniform. But what began as a desperate bid for survival became a performance that delighted the highest ranks of the Nazi elite. And so a young Jewish boy ended up starring in a Nazi propaganda film.

After sixty-three years of silence, Alex revealed his terrible secret to his son Mark. With his son’s help, Alex retraced his past in search of answers. His story is at once a terrifying account of survival and its psychological cost as well as a brutally honest examination of identity, complicity, and memory.

Another BRA bookclub selection. I can't say that I really loved the way the story was told, although it is a powerful, shocking story. I would have been quite happy to read it as a case study or a shorter story. The feelings were varied at our book club meeting. Some loved it, and some felt like me. We all felt for his family too - the son Mark keeping his father's secrets and the loyal wife unaware until much later.

The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger and her younger brother are being taken by their mother to live with a foster family outside Munich. Liesel's father was taken away on the breath of a single, unfamiliar word - Kommunist - and Liesel sees the fear of a similar fate in her mother's eyes. On the journey, Death visits the young boy, and notices Liesel. It will be the first of many near encounters. By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

The Book Thief is a story about the power of words to make worlds. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us an amazing book. This was another BRA book club selection (mine) and I loved it, as did everyone else. I think that was almost a first for everyone to enjoy a book. A very long book but well worth the effort. The book in the book that the Jewish man writes for Leisel is poignant and extremely beautiful. One of the best books that I have read in a long time.