Once

Book Description

Once by Morris Gleitzman is the story of a young Jewish boy who is determined to escape the orphanage he lives in to save his Jewish parents from the Nazis in the occupied Poland of the Second World War.

Everybody deserves to have something good in their life. At least Once.

Once I escaped from am orphanage to find Mum and Dad.

Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.

Once I made a Nazi with a toothache laugh.

My name is Felix. This is my story.

Once is the first in a series of children’s novels about Felix, a Jewish orphan caught in the middle of the Holocaust, from Australian author Morris Gleitzman – author of Bumface and Boy Overboard. The next books in the series Then, Now and After are also available from Puffin.

Review

“Like “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” (rev. 9/06), this Holocaust parable plays its main character’s naivete against readers’ likely knowledge of the historical realities, but here the juxtaposition is believable and not at all precious; like “The Book Thief “(rev. 3/06), the novel extols the power of storytelling in the face of tragedy, but “Once” pits Felix’s stories against even deeper ugliness. … Gleitzman manages to find a grain of hope in the unresolved (and likely dire) conclusion, but this is the rare Holocaust book for young readers that doesn’t alleviate its dark themes with a comforting ending.”–“The Horn Book, “Starred Review

“This gripping novel will make readers want to find out more”–“Booklist”

About the Author
Morris Gleitzman was born in Lincolnshire and moved to Australia in his teens. He worked as a paperboy, a shelf-stacker, a frozen chicken de-froster, an assistant to a fashion designer and more before taking a degree in Professional Writing at Canberra College and becoming a writer. He has written for TV, stage, newspapers and magazines but is best-known for his hugely succesful children’s books including Two Weeks with the Queen, Bumface, Boy Overboard and Girl Underground.