For book review number five I read the book One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping. The author of this book is Barry Denenberg, and the copyright date is 2000. Global Issues is the genre of the book I read.


I would recommend One Eye Laughing, the Other Weeping for middle school students. I would especially recommend this book to anyone interested in the Holocaust and how people lived during this time. This book is good for the middle school age group, but other age groups would find this book an enjoyable read too.

Most teenagers like a book with at least a little bit of excitement in it. This book is full of excitement, drama, and feeling. One great thing about this book is that it’s written in diary form by a young Jewish girl named Julie Weiss. Julie’s diary is full of intense feelings throughout the whole book, and she does not hesitate to say what she thinks. Also, this book explains more about how families dealt with the Holocaust, and what they did to try and survive. Another reason is that this book took place in Vienna, Austria so it shows even in Vienna people struggled with discrimination. Julie has to overcome many challenges while she is in Vienna, but also when she moves to America to get away from the Nazis. In a diary people write exactly how they feel and why, and this exactly how Julie wrote. Her writing style helps the reader actually feel like they were right there with Julie. The excitement and terror of the book begins when the Nazis invade Vienna, committing cruel acts against the Jewish people. The book is also very dramatic. For example Julie has to leave Vienna and move to America to live with her aunt and uncle, without her mother who dies in Vienna, her Father who is a dedicated doctor in Vienna, and her brother who wanted all the Jews to live in Israel. This made a huge impact on Julie’s life. The final factor that made this such an enjoyable read was that the events in the story connect to what I’m learning in eighth grade social studies. Reading this book was like watching a movie in your head about Julie’s life and how she became a strong American girl.

Those are factors make this book such an enjoyable read, and a book I would read again. This book is attractive to middle school students, but high school students and even some adults would like to read this well-detailed novel about a young Jewish girl who actually survives the Holocaust. This story would definitely be an asset to any student who is studying or interested in the devastating events of the Holocaust and WW II.