The Broken Mirror
Grade 4-7.  Historical facts are presented with a heavy hand throughout this story about Moishe and his family. The disparate reactions of Jews to what is happening in Germany in 1939 is clearly represented by the boy's mother's assurance that these "hooligans" (the Nazis) will soon go away, his father's caution in relocating the family to a farm, and their neighbors' exodus from the country. Characters are two-dimensional, except for Moishe, who is only slightly more fleshed out. His older sister is angelic even to the point of her understanding response to her family's betrayal by the German handyman who is responsible for their removal to a concentration camp. Moishe is the only family member to survive; he is rescued and winds up in a Catholic orphanage in the United States after denying that he is Jewish. Conveniently, the story ends with him finding his Jewish identity once again as he wanders into a synagogue and is miraculously taken in and ultimately adopted by the rabbi and his family. This book is far too contrived and peopled with representational characters to compete with the many fine Holocaust stories such as Ida Vos's Hide and Seek (1991), Anna Is Still Here (1993), and Dancing on the Bridge of Avignon (1995, all Houghton), and Renee Roth-Hano's autobiographical Touch Wood (Puffin, 1989).?Renee Steinberg, Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.