Summer of My German Soldier Worksheets and Literature Unit by Bette Greene (Grades ) Daily Reading Journal Go beyond a simple book report. See the progress your students make while they are reading! Summer of My German Soldier Reading Journal Summer of My German Soldier: Mixed Review Literature Unit Summer of My German Soldier is a book I would recommend to everyone. It gives you a whole new point of view about people, especially Germans, Jews and Americans. It Jul 19, · Summer of My German Soldier is a unique sort of book, and it is beautifully written. It is a story about the Holocaust, but it's set in Arkansas. It was a new perspective on this horrible part of our human history. Patty Bergen is a Jewish American who befriends and helps an escaped German POW/5(K)
Summer of My German Soldier – The Scriblerians
SCBWI Golden Kite Book report on summer of my german soldierMassachusetts Children's Book AwardNational Book Award FinalistChildren's Books Want to Read. Buy on Amazon. Rate this book. Summer of My German Soldier 1 Summer of My German Soldier Bette Greene. Minutes before the train pulled into the station in Jenkinsville, Arkansas, Patty Bergen knew something exciting was going to happen.
But she never could have imagined that her summer would be so memorable. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp in Jenkinsville. To the rest of book report on summer of my german soldier town, these prisoners are only Nazis.
But to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent home life, one boy in particular becomes an unlikely friend. Anton relates to Patty in ways that her mother and father never can.
But when their forbidden relationship is discovered, will Patty risk her family and town for the understanding and love of one boy? Historical Fiction. Young Adult. World War II. Original Title Summer of My German Soldier. Series Summer of My German Soldier 1. Setting Arkansas United States. Characters Patty BergenAnton ReikerRuth Hughes. This edition Format pages, Mass Market Paperback.
Published December 1, by Dell Publishing. ISBN ISBN Language English. More details. Bette Greene 9 books followers. As an award-winning author, screenwriter and news reporter, Bette Greene is read worldwide in over 16 languages.
Bette continues her legacy of writing and speaking for the victimized. As a 21st century master author, Bette Greene uses the social media platforms to reach out and touch her readers, Generation - X, Y and Z. Search review text. Displaying 1 - 10 of 1, reviews. I wonder if I can ever do this story justice. It's about a young Jewish girl during WWII who befriends a German POW held in a camp near her small Arkansas town.
That's the plot, but really it's about so much more: about learning to like and love yourself even when significant others don't; about salvific power of love and kindness; about true agape love.
Some might be tempted to reduce Summer to a modern day Romeo and Juliette story minus the romance, violence and suicides.
It is about doomed love across cultural, religious and national barriers unfathomable for the timeperiod. But it really isn't about eros love. It isn't that kind of love story--which is probably why I like it.
I have many favorite quotes from this book, including: ' the only questions I like to raise are those that are unanswerable. a man who is incapable of humor is capable of cruelty. And that there is more nobility in building a chicken coop than in destroying a cathedral. but maybe, just maybe, we all have an enormous capacity for believing in anything that will provide us with a bit of comfort.
And it's the same when people are talking to you. Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession. Clare Cannon. This book is still a beautiful ache in my heart long after I finished it. I don't know why it never came up in lists of recommended modern classics.
It is not a feel good romance, but a beautiful story of courage, friendship and love, and of a young girl learning to filter out the unkindness and prejudice directed towards her to discover the truth and goodness of love. Adolescents who are used to a diet of feel-good will need to be prepared for some heart stretching, but in the long-run, and with a little talking through, reading this book will help them to be better prepared to face the joys and challenges of life with courage and love.
OK, I lied. THIS is the worst book I've ever been FORCED to read. Note to teachers, if you make your students read this, THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM! Have you ever wondered why kids don't like reading? It's because of books like these. And, if you continue to say that this book ties in with whatever WWII lesson your teaching, then I truly feel sorry.
Not for the teachers, but for the students. Plain and simple, this book sucks. To the teachers who make their kids read this, I advise you to turn yourselves into the police, because your torturing your students.
While I have actually not really found Bette Greene's historical fiction novel Summer of my German Soldier quite as readable and as enjoyable as I had fondly been hoping for and especially with regard to Greene's writing book report on summer of my german soldier, which I do think has the unfortunate tendency to sometimes if not even rather often be a trifle rambling and draggingI have in fact and with no feelings of either contrition or any guilt whatsoever decided to still rank Summer of my German Soldier with a full five stars.
Now I can of course and more than readily and fully understand those more negative reviews of Summer of my German Soldier where the main point of criticism and contention has been about how Bette Greene's stylistics, about how her modes of literary expression often seem to feel a bit tediously dragging for as mentioned above, this is in fact also my own main issue with Summer of my German Soldiernamely that even with me being very book report on summer of my german soldier interested in and engaged with Patty and Anton's story and feeling both uplifted and devastated by it, how Betty Greene has her plot move along, this has certainly at times felt both distancing and not all that engagingly rendered.
But no indeed, as person of German background and having experienced a lot of very deliberate ethnic and cultural based bullying and ethnic hatred filled bigotry because of the latter when my family immigrated to Canada when I was ten years of ageI will simply NOT consider those entirely negative musings on Summer of my German Soldier where the "reviewer" basically states that ALL Germans are somehow at best problematic and at worst tainted and guilty of Naziism by the mere fact of our birth and our ethnic and genetic backgrounds as being anything but offensive propagandistic bile!
And in fact and also knowing rather full well that this assessment might indeed be possibly offensive to some and perhaps even to book report on summer of my german soldierwhen I was reading the most vehemently angry and furiously vile online criticisms of Summer of my German SoldierI was most definitely left with the very distinct and uncomfortable impression of having encountered political propaganda rather totally akin and alike to what the Nazis themselves had used, for the rhetoric I have book report on summer of my german soldier with the most angry and furious tirades against Summer of my German Soldier was certainly very much the exact same type as had been used by Hitler, Goebbels, Goering etc.
and even reading Summer of my German Soldier for a second time has not at all changed this impression, but has in fact and indeed only augmented this feeling and my frustrated rage ad infinitum. We never read Summer of My German Soldier in class honestly, what did we read?
I hadn't realized the main character and narrator of the story, Patty, was so young 12 ; my first assumption was that she was old enough for this to be a more common sort of love story.
It's not what I was anticipating, but despite her youth, it is a love story, of a sort, or of several sorts. It involves Patty's love for her sister, against all odds: it would have been less surprising to me if she had loathed Sharon for being the apple of their parents' eyes by simply existing.
What were the first five years of Patty's life, pre-Sharon, like, I wonder? Patty's love for - or desire to love - her parents, against even greater odds. Anton Reiker, book report on summer of my german soldier German Soldier, is part of that facet; his point of view is not only as a grateful recipient of her help but as someone who sees what the rest of her life is doing to her.
His and Ruth's interaction with Patty reminded me of Aibilene from The Help, constantly telling the browbeaten little girl "You is kind, book report on summer of my german soldier, you is smart, you is good Trying to provide a life raft in a sea of self-hatred.
There is, to be honest, a lot not to like about Patty, at first glance - which is what makes her a compelling character. She - a Jewish girl - decides to aid an escaped German POW purely based on the fact that he was friendly to her, was attractive, and spoke excellent English, and that she was instantly infatuated with him without really knowing how to express that, even to herself ; for all she knew, actually knew, he could have been the deepest-dyed Nazi there ever was.
A sheltered and affection-starved twelve-year old isn't exactly the judge of character I'd want to rely on in this situation. In fact, from the little bit I know about Nazi espionage techniques, Reiker is the sort of man most prized by the SS: able to speak unaccented English, plausible and friendly-seeming My hair stood on end a bit thinking about it. She could have caused unspeakable damage with one thoughtless act.
Also, of course, her constant lies are off-putting, and a little alarming, but in the context of her pitiable desperation to do something, book report on summer of my german soldier, anything to finally reach her parents' hearts they make sense.
It seems to be an almost instinctual response to almost any situation — one which, hopefully, she can outgrow. The introduction - exclusive to the Open Road edition, I think - talks about Bette Greene's parents' reaction to the book. They weren't brought to shame about their behavior, but were instead - as always - put out with their daughter that she had not had more consideration for them.
I've encountered Eeeevil Parents in a couple of books lately, and sighed over them, wanting more depth to make them realistic … in Patty's parents the lack of depth is partly down to the story being told by a twelve-year-old. She had no way of knowing any kind of motivation for how they treated her, no way to fathom the psychology.
She doesn't look for excuses for them - she simply shoulders the responsibility for it she's not a good person and tries to make amends. It's horrifying. Looking over what I've written I see variations on the word "desperate" popping up.
And for a brief book written in a fairly light tone, centered around the suburban life of a twelve-year-old merchant's daughter in 20th century Alabama, there is a wrenching amount of desperation running all through it, book report on summer of my german soldier. Reiker does not escape because he wants to meet up with saboteurs we hopebut because the confinement was pressing upon him, and he needed freedom.
Ruth is, on surface, what the Scots call sonsy; she is the mammy archetype of the middle-aged black servant who actually looks after the white folks' children - but at least one of these white folks' children is in a bad way, and she has a son of her own who is at hazard.
Hers is, book report on summer of my german soldier, too, the constant worry of her race and position in her time and place. Patty sees her mother as the consummate salesperson, able to sell ice to an Eskimo, but the little scene we are shown of a poor farmer's wife being cozened into buying not only the dress she was looking at but an ugly hat as well is almost heartbreaking in its sordidness: the mother's eagerness to wring another dollar out of someone who can't afford it but who is almost as thirsty for praise as Patty; the false praise being heaped on this stranger when Patty would, literally, do anything for a kind word.
Love and desperation. It packs a punch that surprised me, this little book. Another book I was forced to read for school and consequently now despise to the depths of my soul. But really, it's crap on its own. A twelve year old girl, complete with an abusive father and lacking the three c's of an interesting protagonist Confidence, Common sense, and Charactergets the brilliant idea of hiding an escaped German POW in her garage.
And for an added dramatic twist, SHE'S JEWISH! How's THAT for exciting conflict?
Summer of My German Soldier
, time: 3:56Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene | Goodreads
Summer of My German Soldier () by Bette Greene is told from the point of view of Patty, a twelve-year-old Jewish girl living in Arkansas during the Second World War. One day when she goes to her father’s store, she meets Anton, an escaped German POW. Patty, a young Jewish girl, is isolated from her community because of her religion; she is also isolated from her family Summer of My German Soldier is a book I would recommend to everyone. It gives you a whole new point of view about people, especially Germans, Jews and Americans. It Jul 19, · Summer of My German Soldier is a unique sort of book, and it is beautifully written. It is a story about the Holocaust, but it's set in Arkansas. It was a new perspective on this horrible part of our human history. Patty Bergen is a Jewish American who befriends and helps an escaped German POW/5(K)
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