LIBRARY EDITION: Felix lives in a convent orphanage high in the mountains in Poland. He is convinced his parents are still alive and that they will one day come back to get him. When Nazi soldiers come to the orphanage Felix decides to escape and make his way home. The journey to find his parents is a long and difficult one, as all of Poland is occupied by the Nazis and a dangerous place for a Jewish boy. Felix manages to live and look after himself and another orphan, Zelda, with the help of a kind dentist, Barney, who is hiding and looking after a number of Jewish children. When the Nazis discover them, Barney makes the ultimate sacrifice for the children – electing to go with them on the train to the death camps, rather than taking the option of freedom offered by a Nazi soldier, one of his grateful patients. Moving, thought-provoking and wryly humorous, Once is story of friendship, belonging and survival from the best-selling author of Girl Underground, Boy Overboard and Worm...

ONCE is the story of children in the Holocaust, poignant and powerful without being frightening or graphic. With his gentle and utterly alive manner, Gleitzman reads the tale of Felix, a Jewish boy who runs away from the convent where his parents had him hidden and roams the countryside with an orphaned girl until they find their way to the cellar of a print shop in the Warsaw ghetto, where an old dentist has been protecting lost children. Gleitzman's reading is precise and lovely, often delivered in an understated whisper, emphasizing the intensity of the story and the author's skill as a consummate storyteller. Klezmer music punctuates the chapters. ONCE is very much a story about storytelling memory. Seldom does a story come along so powerful in its simplicity. S.E.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2006 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

 

Morris Gleitzman has discovered the difficult trick of changing reality so that poignancy and laughter are never far apart

 

Morris Gleitzman's children's stories are among the most widely read and loved

 

Morris Gleitzman was born in 1953 in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England and immigrated to Australia when he was sixteen. He has worked in a variety of jobs including TV producer, newspaper columnist and screenwriter. Then he had a wonderful experience. He wrote a novel for young people. Now he’s a children's author. Morris Gleitzman’s brilliant comic style has endeared him to adults and children alike. He is one of Australia’s best known writers of novels for children. His family comedies are enormously popular in Australia and overseas and involve unusual characters in unusual situations. Behind the humour is a poignancy that reflects real life problems, many of them controversial. His hugely successful books have won many awards and been published internationally. He was named Favourite Australian Author 1999 in the Dymocks Booksellers Children’s Choice Awards and won Best Book for Older Readers 2000 in the YABBA Awards for Toad Rage.

Once by Morris Gleitzman
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