Just when you think all the territory has been covered for Holocaust novels, along comes Ann Clare LeZotte's 2008 poetic novel T4.
Heroine Paula Becker is a deaf thirteen-year-old whose world is turned upside down by Hitler's Action T4 (Tiergartenstrasse 4). This action declared the mentally ill and disabled unfit to live and ordered them euthanized. The narrative of her escape is told in short poems in blank verse.
LeZotte, herself a deaf writer and poetess, creates a tale that is engaging yet suspenseful. Truthful, but not overwhelming, this novel opens a little-known period of history in a format appropriate for intermediate grades and adults, as well.
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