(damaged) Death Camp Uprising: The Escape from Sobibor Concentration Camp

Death Camp Uprising: The Escape from Sobibor Concentration Camp
Roughly 200,000 people were murdered at Sobibor, making it the fourth most deadly extermination camp of WWII. Not only a place of unspeakable human cruelty, Sobibor is also the site of a prisoner revolt that involved 300 men, women, and teens. Death Camp Uprising relates the sweep of the story from the planning to the execution and, finally, to the freedom of a handful of prisoners who made it past the Nazi officers and Ukranian guards.

Opening and closing with a brief chapter of text, the central portion of Death Camp Uprising is in the form of action-packed graphics, making the story more accessible for reluctant readers.

Death Camp Uprising is a tribute to those heroes who faced horrific conditions during World War II. Because of the shocking content, Death Camp Uprising may be best suited for readers ages 9 to 12 years.

 

About Graphic Novels

Experienced parents know that the amount of reading their child does will directly and positively impact his reading fluency and vocabulary development. That is why graphic novels, once relegated to the category of lowbrow reading, have experienced a surge in popularity.

 

You may think that the graphic novel is primarily for mainstream American children who are peppered by snack-size visual and audio bombardment. If you desire that your children slow down and feast on the written word, you may cringe at the idea of a graphic novel version of Moby Dick. But before you issue a home-wide ban on these books, consider the following.

 

If you have a reluctant or beginning reader, your first concern should be fluidity and competency. You will find that the graphic novel illustrations draw your child in even as the vocabulary becomes more complex. Then, because the graphics are so attention-grabbing, children often find themselves reading for pleasure.

 

If your reluctant reader is an older child, your primary concern may be making sure that he is culturally savvy. With graphic novels, vocabulary is introduced via contextual clues, making great literature accessible to more children. The interesting pictures and snappy dialogue (with little-to-no narration to bog the reader down) will encourage independent reading and learning. As the child's competence and confidence grow, his joy in literacy will increase.

 

Even if your older child is a competent reader, he will enjoy taking a break from the verbally intense books characteristic of higher-level learning. A 2006 study found that the amount of reading children did for fun decreased from the time they were eight through their teen years. Graphic books can re-engage them in the delights of reading for leisure and learning.

 

Some children may never read for pleasure. But most children, from the reluctant, faltering reader to the brilliant but easily bored adolescent will find graphic novels intriguing.