Now

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Famous picture book HAIRY MACLARY FROM DONALDSON'S DAIRY by New Zealand author Dame Lynley Dodd, read aloud by Morris Gleitzman, author of ONCE, BOY OVERBOARD and TOAD RAGE. Its strange that a lot of these little books written for children are so sad and tragic but uplifting at the same time! This book, though not bringing an onion cry, succeeded in making my eyes watery. That's Gleitzman for you.

Morris Gleitzman - Now - Chapter 1 Morris Gleitzman - Now - Chapter 1

The story is also brilliant for the secondary characters Gleitzman peppers throughout. A few seem to be inspired by real heroes of WWII, like Janusz Korczak who was a Polish-Jewish doctor and children’s author that helped run an orphanage for Jewish children, and ended up perishing along with them when they were taken to a concentration camp. In Gletizman’s book there’s a friendly Jewish dentist, who hides children in his basement and tends to the teeth of Nazi soldiers. So obviously we find out that Felix survived the war and we also find out how he managed to survived

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Once is a 2005 children's novel by Australian author Morris Gleitzman. It is about a Jewish boy named Felix who lived in Poland and is on a quest to find his book-keeper parents after he sees Nazis burning the books from a Catholic orphanage in which had stayed at for 3 years and 8 months. He finds a girl named Zelda, unconscious in a burning house with her dead parents; he takes her with him and protects her from confronting her parents' death by telling her stories. Although Once is a work of fiction, Gleitzman was inspired by the story of Janusz Korczak, the events of World War II, and Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe. In the post-war danger and chaos in Poland, where hate and bigotry still seem to rule the day, will Felix be able to retain his hopeful spirit that the world will someday be a safe and happy place? The war was hard on Gabriek and Felix who lost quite a few people they loved very much, and now Gabriek spends most of his time sleeping off the cabbage vodka he makes in his still, when not doing repair work to get food for the two of them. I was hoping to find out how our hero became a doctor but there are only indicators: "When you are educating yourself to be a doctor, you need all the practice you can get." "Around here, medical books are scarcer than walls." "My body is a library too." "I know usually a doctor should wait until a patient asks for treatment, it's called medical ethics." He also wrote live stage material for people such as Rolf Harris, Pamela Stephenson and the Governor General of Australia. Morris is well known to many people through his semi-autobiographical columns in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald magazine, Good Weekend, which he wrote for nine years.

NOW | Kirkus Reviews

Lewis, Tom (2009-08-17), " Once and Then, Morris Gleitzman. (Brief article, book review)", New Statesman, 138 (4962): 46(1), ISSN 1364-7431 Gross, Claire E (2010-09-22), "Gleitzman, Morris: Once (Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)", The Horn Book Guide, 21 (2): 339(1), ISSN 1044-405X

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In this book Felix has to look after a little baby, when the mother hands the baby to him shortly before she is killed. I adore Felix, he is such a sweet soul even when the world around him is full of evil and horrible people. Even after all he's been through he is still so kind and caring. Readers have witnessed the traumas that shaped Felix into the strong, kind man of ‘Now’, and in ‘Soon’ we’re still witnessing that transformation unfold. For Felix in this book, it’s really a push-pull of doing the right thing and still struggling to survive. He is now 13, with a heart set of becoming a doctor and a conscience that keeps his values intact, despite his circumstances. This is the story of Felix taking more people into his trust and watching the growing yet moral boy not let the destruction and desperation around him drag him down.

Once (novel) - Wikipedia Once (novel) - Wikipedia

Which it might have been if in the years that followed I hadn’t had several rushes of blood to the head and written another four Felix books. Well, not so much rushes of blood to the head as rushes of Felix to the imagination. The result being that Now was promoted from book number three in Felix’s long journey to book number six. Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown Calm down, Zelda, you’re not a squeaky toy. I thank Elvis and head for the door. My phone beeps in my school bag. I know who it is without even looking. Poor Felix. He gets worried if I’m late home from school. He’s not used to being my substitute parent.

Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad. Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house. Once I made a Nazi with a toothache laugh. My name is Felix. This is my story.' This is a nice little book written for children so is quite short, but oh so poignant and heartbreaking. It has a similar feel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas I kept trying to remember the things mentioned in Now, but failed. The series is coming to an end and I'm not ready to break my heart (again and again). At the end of the second book, poor Felix has just seen his foster mother and friend hung in the town square for what amounts to 'looking at the Nazi officers a bit funny'as far as I could tell. This wonderful book has not yet been published in Portugal, so I read in English thanks to my Daughter, who got it for me.