Name: Prisoner B-3087
Brand: Scholastic Press
SKU: U054545901K
Price: 10.66 BHD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.7 (13 reviews)

About this item:

From Alan Gratz, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Refugee, comes this wrenching novel about one boy's struggle to survive ten concentration camps during the Holocaust. Based on the inspiring true life story of Jack Gruener.

10 concentration camps. 10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly. It's something no one could imagine surviving. But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face. As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner -- his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087. He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could have never imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror. He just barely escapes death, only to confront it again seconds later. Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will -- and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside? Based on an astonishing true story.

From School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-"If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more. I wouldn't have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath, or going to bed at eight o'clock every night." Yanek Gruener was 10 years old when the German army invaded Poland in 1939 and trapped his family inside the walls of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. Over the course of World War II, he saw his parents deported by the Nazis and survived 10 different concentration camps. Through Gratz's spare, persistent prose, the story of the boy's early life unfolds with the urgency and directness necessary for survivor stories. While some liberties have been taken, with the permission of Gruener and his wife, Ruth, also a survivor, the experiences and images come directly from the Grueners' collective memories of the war. An author's note provides further biographical information. A powerful story, well told.-Sara Saxton, Tuzzy Consortium Library, Barrow, AKα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

When Hitler’s army entered and occupied his native Kraków, 10-year-old Yanek knew his life might change, but he had no idea of the horror that lay ahead. His remarkable survival story begins with a dramatic, emotional punch and then chronicles such moments as his secretive bar mitzvah in a warehouse basement, the systematic round up of Jews, and his deportation to the Plaszow concentration camp, the first of 10 camps he would suffer but survive. He recalls encounters with such Nazi figures as the sadistic Amon Goeth and describes acts of wanton, viscious brutality. In an appended note, Gratz explains that the novel is based on actual events in survivor Jack Gruener’s life but he has “taken liberties with some times and events” to provide a better overview. The account includes basic historical information including essential aspects of WWII. A map would have been helpful, but this essentially true story is a good starting point for students unfamiliar with the Holocaust. Pair it with Doreen Rappaport’s Beyond Courage (2012) and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. Grades 5-8. --Linda Perkins

Review

Praise for Prisoner B-3087:A Junior Library Guild SelectionGolden Sower Award, 2014-2015 Winner NebraskaIsinglass Teen Read Award, 2014-2015 Winner New HampshirePennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award, 2014-2015 Winner PennsylvaniaJunior Book Award, 2015-2016 Winner South CarolinaGrand Canyon Reader Award, 2015-2016 Winner ArizonaTruman Readers Award, 2015-2016 Winner MissouriReaders Choice Awards, Winner 2015-2016 Virginia Volunteer State Book Award Winner, 2015-2016 Tennessee"A powerful story, well told." -- School Library Journal"A bone-chilling tale not to be ignored." -- Kirkus Reviews"[A] remarkable survival story." -- Booklist"Gratz ably conveys . . . fatalism, yearning, and determination in the face of the unimaginable." -- Publishers Weekly"Heartbreaking, gripping, raw, and emotional . . . storytelling at its finest." -- VOYA

About the Author

ALAN GRATZ is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several highly acclaimed books for young readers, including Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor, Two Degrees, Ground Zero, Allies, Grenade,Refugee, Projekt 1065, Prisoner B-3087, Code of Honor, and Captain America: The Ghost Army, an original graphic novel. Alan lives with his family in the Pacific Northwest. Look for him online at alangratz.com.
Ruth Gruener was born Aurelia Gamser in 1930s Poland. Ruth and her parents survived the Holocaust by hiding in the homes of gentile families. After World War II was over, Ruth and her family moved to the United States, where Ruth tried to start an ordinary teenage life in Brooklyn. Ruth married Jack Gruener, another Holocaust survivor, with whom she lived in Brooklyn until Jack's passing in 2017. They have two children and four grandchildren. Until her death in 2021, Ruth worked as a docent at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in downtown Manhattan and traveled all over the country to speak to schools about her and Jack's experiences in the Holocaust.

From PRISONER B-3087I looked out through the cracks of the crawlspace. Goeth was coming closer, all shining black leather boots and crisp black uniform. One of his dogs lifted its ears and looked right at me.I pulled back away from the wall. “We're trapped. We have to get out of here. ” I was almost choking on my own fear. “And go where?” Thomas hissed. “If we leave, they'll find us in the barrack!”“I don't care. We can't be caught here.” I pushed my way up and out of the crawlspace. I gasped, filling my lungs. But if I didn't really want to die , I had to move quickly. My heart was thumping. but I it made me feel alive, and feeling alive made me want to stay alive.

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