Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz

Pages: 260
Intended Audience: Teens and Mature Tweens
Genre: Real Life / Historical / Holocaust
Notes for parents: Many scenes of violence, cruelty, and suffering. For mature readers only.

The Back Cover
Ten concentration camps.
Ten 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 marked 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 never have imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror.
Can Yanek make it through without losing his will to live—and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside?

What the Back Cover doesn’t tell you:

This is based on the true story of Ruth and Jack Gruener. However, there is a disclaimer that reminds the reader that it is a work of fiction. The author says he has “taken liberties with time and events to paint a fuller and more representative picture of the Holocaust as a whole.”

What’s good?

Told with a detached, almost cold writing style reminiscent of Elie Wiesel’s Night, this disturbing tale of a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust is a heartbreaking reminder of man’s inhumanity toward man. The writing is simple and easy to read and the plot is straight forward and predictable all things considered. However, the content of Yanek’s experience is filled with cruelty and suffering which makes the ethical dilemmas he encounters and the moral decisions he must make heartbreakingly difficult to watch.
Best part: Crying over a toothbrush.

What’s not so good?

Almost 70 years after the end of World War II, the book market continues to be saturated with Holocaust stories. This one is really no different than any other. It’s a story of unspeakable crimes, amazing feats of survival, and the desperate struggle to hold on to one’s humanity in the midst of history’s most shameful human behavior. Sadly, I think many readers, especially young ones, are becoming desensitized to the horrors and are experiencing these stories more as entertainment rather than truth.
Worst part: None for me.

Recommendations þþþþo

This book is powerful in its simplicity and an excellent addition to the numerous stories that have been told about the Holocaust experience. It contains realistic scenes of violence and cruelty and should be read only by the most mature readers. Absolutely recommended.

Gratz, Alan. Prisoner B-3087. New York: Scholastic, 2013. (Hardcover)