Series: Usborne Famous Lives Series.
Subject Areas: History.
Ages: 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16.
Type: Biography, Non-fiction Readers

Reading this Usborne title along with the one I reviewed last week (Anne Frank), will give your student a better understanding of the Holocaust and what led up to the horrors of that time period. One by one, all of my children have picked up this book to read it, and have all felt the darkness that characterizes Hitler's life. This book was written by Joachim Fest, a former prisoner of war and authority on Adolf Hitler. (He wrote Inside Hitler's Bunker which was also made into a film, Downfall.)

Much of Hitler's early history was new to me; I wondered how different his life might have been if his father had been a different type of man, if his mother hadn't indulged his laziness and selfishness, or what might have changed if he had been accepted into art school instead of being rejected.

It appears that he was easily influenced by the ideas of others, and had no good relationships with people. His hatred for the Jewish people grew steadily and ominously, with no basis or reason for it, and was helped along by other extremists. His skill at public speaking thrust him into the limelight, and he worked and connived his way to the top of the Nazi Party. It's chilling to read about his poisoned plans and the circumstances that brought him to power, and finally to his violent end. A timeline of his life is presented at the end of the book.

I would urge caution with this title about who reads it. Also, the websites may be disturbing for some children, but they are very appropriate selections -- there are photos of concentration camp prisoners, speeches by Hitler that you can listen to, another website shows how wicked leaders were able to "achieve political ends through propaganda," and perhaps most disturbing (for me) was Hitler shown with the youth of Germany that he pulled into his horrible agenda. Look at this quote of Hitler's from 1933: "I want a brutal, domineering, fearless, cruel youth. Youth must be all that. It must bear pain. There must be nothing weak and gentle about it. The free, splendid beast of prey must once again flash from its eyes...That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of human domestication...That is how I will create the New Order." Yuk! No wonder he shot himself.

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Of Interest To: Librarians and Media Specialists, Parents, Teachers