More of an Idiot: Briar Rose, Jane Yolen: "On recommendation from a roommate and fellow Vincentian volunteer.
This book brings together the stories of the Holocaust and Sleeping Beauty, one of my favorite fairy tales. I mostly liked the fairy tale as a child because I had a Sleeping Beauty book with the most beautiful illustrations. I sped through Jane Yolen's Briar Rose in one evening, from 4pm to 10pm, despite the fact that I had assumed it would keep me reading for a few days.
Despite the fact that it is in the Fairy Tale series, a series of books by different authors meant to bring fairy tales to life in the modern world. It is the story of a girl on a quest for her own history and her grandmother's identity, an identity which Yolen reveals through the story of Sleeping Beauty. Any Holocaust story is bound to be tragic, and this novel is no exception. Yet it keeps from being oppressive. I'm fairly certain that I've read excerpts from it somewhere, because portions of it were so familiar that I already knew the names of places and events, but I know I hadn't seen some of the plotlines before.
The library housed it with Juvenile Fiction, where it probably fits best, but it doesn't need to be a children's book. Which, after all, is part of the goal of the Fairy Tale series."
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