Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Silver Sword

I read The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier over the weekend. It is a children's book that was published first in 1954, though the first time I heard of the book was in the last couple months. The story takes place in Europe during World War II. The story starts with a family-the mother, the father, and three children living in Warsaw. The father is sent off to a prison camp, the mother is arrested, and the three children are left to fend for themselves. The bulk of the story focuses on the three children Ruth, Edek, and Bronia, along with their friend Jan, trying to get to Switzerland from Warsaw to be reunited with their father. The book reminded me some of other children's novels about World War II like Twenty and Ten by Claire Bishop, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, and Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan. The difference is the characters in this book have very little direction from adults in their task. It is a story I would recommend reading. It would be a good book for a student studying World War II. It has also been reprinted under the title Escape from Warsaw.

2 comments:

Anita D. said...

I'll have to add this to my "to read" list.

Melissa S said...

I'll add this to Tyler's reading list --- he likes to watch the military tv channel