After leaving their residence, Sylvia’s family is then forced into an all-Jewish ghetto with no available contact to the world outside the barbwire fences of the ghetto. Sylvia along with her sister Dora and both of their parents, were forced out of their modest lifestyle when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Syvia (now called Sylvia), was an average child – a petite, timid girl who was barely five with not a single fear or concern in the world… that was about to be change. Roy did a fabulous job with her first hand account of the horrid ghettos many Jewish families lived in (against their will) during the duration of WWII, before being sent to concentration camps where Adolf Hitler’s dream of a superior race was on the brink of becoming a reality. In the novel, Sylvia suffers from fear and depression as her life is in danger, while also acquiring a bond of love between her and the other members of her family, as they risk their very lives in hopes of saving hers. Jennifer Roy presents Sylvia’s story in a way that most everyone can relate to in one way or another. Yellow Star has a large spectrum of emotions packed into the story-line of a mere child. While reading this book, the reader feels a sensation as if he/she is looking through Sylvia’s eyes at the horrors and disbelief unraveling in, hadthe world around her. This novel is written in a way that is like no other.

Written in the first person narrator, Yellow Star is able to envelope the reader and provide him/her with an experience from more than half a century ago. Although Yellow Star is not packed with action and suspense, Jennifer Roy dove deeply into the emotional aspect of Sylvia’s story. I would definitely recommend Yellow Star to my fellow middle school students. In Yellow Star, Roy reveals the social issues which plagued society in the 1940s.

Yellow Star is written by Jennifer Roy and the book’s copyright date is 2006 under the genre of Global Issues.

Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy