Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz

Survive. At any cost.
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.

Wow. I am in shock. I'm not gonna rate this, because there is no rating that could encompass how raw & real this book felt..and how real it is.

This is a great informative book. Following the life of the main character through the trials he faced as well as the horror. It opened my eyes to the hatred some can hold and the perseverance that others may have.

When it comes to the major Holocaust experiences, there are many books to choose from. Firstly, there are classics like The Diary of Anne Frank, and Night by Elie Wiesel, then there are more modern books like The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe, and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. With these many works in mind, I asked myself while reading this book, “What is here to recommend? Why would I recommend this book to a friend over other books?” Sadly, there is very little here to answer those two questions.

Prisoner B-3087 begins with a boy named Yanek Gruener who is 12 a the beginning of the story in Poland during the beginnings of WWII. He is trying to live a normal life when Germany invades his country. Soon his town is turned into a Jewish Ghetto, and, eventually, he is sent to over 10 concentration camps throughout the course of the novel.

The best thing that this book has going for it is that it is set in Poland during WWII. We have read many different books about Germany, France, and Britain, but comparatively few on Poland. This is something to be commended.

Yet, despite this, there is little else to recommend. The story isn't as hard hitting as, say, Anne Frank, or as inspiring as The Librarian of Auschwitz. Now, maybe it isn't as fair to compare the books that should be read by Young Adults with this book that is designed for older kids, or young Middle School students in mind. Yet, even in it's own category, it isn't as poignet as Night. I think this comes down to the way it is written, in that, there are no real characters to connect to. Yes, we have the main character, but because we know he is going to survive, we automatically lose some amount of tension for him as a character. Other people who are written meet a tragic end in ways one would expect in a book like this, but in the meantime the reader does not learn anything about them, or connect with them in a meaningful way. The descriptions are also lacking, with much of this story being told to use rather than shown. This makes for a narrative that consists of “first this happened, then this, then this...” that can become grading after a while. Eventually, I skimmed the first part of this, as I just wanted to see how this book ended, and it ends exactly how you think a book like this would end.

Look, maybe this is just a case of how I am not the right reader for this kind of novel. Clearly, this is intended for young readers (say early middle school, at the most). Still, I can't recommend this book over others mentioned above, even those in the middle school age bracket. For this reason, I give this book a two out of five for me, and a three out of five for the intended audience. If you want to learn more about history, and are in middle school, then pick this up. If you are like me, and have many more options to pick from, then I would stick to something else.