Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Violence: The book mentions that Jews are shot, beaten, and pulled apart as families. A soldier drags Syvia out of her hiding place and kicks her. Concentration camps mentioned.

Adult Content: The setting is the holocaust, which is a mature topic. The deplorable conditions of hunger and filth in the ghetto are described. The Jews fear being shot, being sent to the concentration camps, the children being found, starving to death, etc. Most of the fears are seen through the eyes of Syvia who only partially understands the horrors the Nazi’s are capable of. Syvia hides in a cemetery night after night, and later other places in town, as the Nazis round up the children in the ghetto.

Summary

Yellow Star is the true story of Syvia Perlmutter. She was four years old when World War II began, and she and her family and 270,000 other Jews were forced to live in the small, fenced-off ghetto of Lodz, Poland. Her experiences, and child-like views of the Holocaust, tell a moving story of courage, love and the survival of the Perlmutter family. They, like most Jews, are forced to live in terrible conditions of hunger, cold, fear, hard work and harassment by the Germans. When the ghetto was liberated in 1945, only 800 walked out. “Of those who survived, only twelve were children. [Syvia] was one of the twelve.” As most Jews are being sent off to concentration camps, Syvia’s father outsmarts the Germans to protect his family and others around him. This book is only listed as fiction because it is told in first-person verse and is a biography, not autobiography. The author is Syvia’s niece. The content of the book is from taped interviews given by Syvia.

Because Yellow Star is written in free verse, it makes for a quick read. The Library Media Connection praised the author for using age-appropriate language: “When Syvia witnesses the shooting of people in the street,…Roy captures the fear of the moment without graphic descriptions.” And I really appreciated that. This book has won many awards, and it is no wonder. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is the most readable young adult holocaust book I’ve ever read, and while Syvia is the main character and a true hero, I found myself amazed over and over at the heroism displayed by her father. What courage he had! His family lived through the war because of him.