{ "item_title" : "What the Night Sings", "item_author" : [" Vesper Stamper "], "item_description" : "A Morris Award FinalistLonglisted for the National Book Award For fans of The Book Thief and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas comes a lushly illustrated novel about a teen Holocaust survivor who must come to terms with who she is and how to rebuild her life. A tour de force. This powerful story of love, loss, and survival is not to be missed. --KRISTIN HANNAH, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale After losing her family and everything she knew in the Nazi concentration camps, Gerta is finally liberated, only to find herself completely alone. Without her papa, her music, or even her true identity, she must move past the task of surviving and on to living her life. In the displaced persons camp where she is staying, Gerta meets Lev, a fellow teen survivor who she just might be falling for, despite her feelings for someone else. With a newfound Jewish identity she never knew she had, and a return to the life of music she thought she lost forever, Gerta must choose how to build a new future. What the Night Sings is a book from the heart, of the heart, and to the heart. Vesper Stamper's Gerta will stay with you long after you turn the last page. Her story is one of hope and redemption and life--a blessing to the world. --Deborah Heiligman, award-winning author of Charles and Emma and Vincent and Theo A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST CHILDREN'S BOOK OF 2018A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF 2018", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/52/470/038/152470038X_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "21.99", "online_price" : "21.99", "our_price" : "21.99", "club_price" : "21.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "6.97" } }

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Recovering from the unimaginable

If you think you’ve read everything there is to read about the Holocaust in young adult fiction, think again. True, Vesper Stamper’s debut novel, What the Night Sings, contains scenes that have come to be staples of the genre: a Nazi raid, an overcrowded train journey, prisoners starving in concentration camps. But Stamper frames these familiar motifs with a question not often addressed in Holocaust literature: What happens after liberation?

Gerta is a singer and a violist who has lost her family and her voice. Roza is relearning to play the piano with damaged hands. Lev finds solace in his prayers. Micah is scouring Europe for survivors who are willing to build a new life in British-occupied Palestine. As each character begins to heal in body, soul and spirit, they wrestle with difficult questions about their identities, their relationships and their futures. Suffused with detailed descriptions of Jewish life and customs, What the Night Sings is illustrated with Stamper’s sepia-tone drawings, and her background as an artist shines as she uses light, shadow and repetition to depict everything from meager food rations to a glorious wedding gown. Do not miss this stunning debut.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Vesper Stamper.

This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.