"The Endless Steppe"

Happy Holidays, dear readers!

It's been a while - just enjoying the holidays with my little family, getting some MUCH needed projects done, hanging with the kiddos, and trying to assist my hubby with our master bathroom renovation. It's great, but I sort of miss the daily routine of things. I'm a very routine oriented person so after a while, I crave that, "It's Wednesday so today we..." 

Anyway, if you read the earlier post on my birthday about my goals for the year, I mentioned that I'd like to read 30 books this year, which comes to about 2 1/2 books per month. So, to keep it easier, I'm going to try to read 3 books per month. Since you read this blog, I HOPE and PRAY that you are a lover of reading or at least force yourself to read! It's my lifelong passion and I wish I had more time to do it. I digress...

I thought I'd share with you the books I've read and just a bit of what it was about, if it was decent, etc... I know I'm always looking for new books to read and new authors and genres to discover so I hope you enjoy and maybe find some new reads yourself through these ""literature" posts!

I'm a little nervous that it's the 1st month of my goals, we are only 12 days away from month #2, and I just finished book #1 but upward and onward! I just finished reading a book entitled "The Endless Steppe" by Esther Hautzig.

I should probably explain that being a junior high reading teacher, high school "Literary Criticisms" electives teacher and having a minor in literature, I have a GREAT love of adolescent lit. This book would probably fall in that category simply because the main character of the book is a young girl - about age 9 at the beginning, I believe, and ends when she is a preteen/teenager... but it is also an autobiography and takes place during WWII. This (WWII) is my greatest historical fiction/autobiography "era" that I enjoy reading and have read COUNTLESS biographies/autobiographies/historical fiction on this topic. I find it fascinating, horrifying, moving, and insightful all wrapped in one time period. If you haven't read anything in that time period, please do so. May we never forget the horrors that occurred. I have some wonderful titles of autobiographies from that time period if you are interested.

Anyway, back to the book. I was a bit hesitant at first to read this book simply because it deals with some Polish Jews that were sent in exile to Siberia and the "Steppes" as they are called. I had never read anything dealing with Siberia or that particular area in Europe - my experience has always been with concentration camps and the Ghetto. This book is fantastic. Written by Esther Hautzig at a later time in her life, she records briefly what her young life was like in Vilna, Poland, at the outset of WWII and then how one day they were suddenly arrested by the German police, placed in cattle cars, and sent to Siberia for 5 years. It was greatly different from reading about barbed wire fences, soldiers with guns, and horrible cruelty. Yet, it also showed another side of the harsh treatment of the Jews. They were placed in a village that was basically impossible to escape merely b/c leaving the food and shelter in such a harsh climate would lead to inevitable death. The hard conditions, meager supplies and food, and incredibly hostile environment shows a whole other side of hardship during the war. It's about 243 pages, an easy read, and clean. While it isn't necessarily a "Christian autobiography", it is a wonderful read and gives some wonderful history tucked throughout the story line. I'm glad I read it and would recommend it to anyone! :-)

1 book down, 29 to go. :-)