The Whirlwind

by Carol Matas

It is 1941. Fourteen-year-old Ben Friedman flees the horrors of Nazi Germany with his parents and his sister, leaving behind his grandparents, his friends, his home. They make a difficult journey over land and sea all the way to Japan and then to America. In Seattle, Ben dares to hope that he will finally be safe. He finds a friend in John, a Japanese-American boy, but then comes the attack on Pearl Harbor and everything changes. Fear begins to grow in Ben, fear that it is all happening again. Where can he be safe? What should he do? He dreams of Canada, thinking it a haven, only to find that he has nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. Perhaps safety is not where or even what he thinks it is. Perhaps life is not what he imagined at all.

Genres: World War II, Holocaust, Historical

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

Reviews

[Morrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing really did feel like a whirlwind, with a lot happening in only a few pages. Not my favourite of hers for that reason. I did, however, find parts of it very thought provoking and eloquently put.

[Rever · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like History i think this book will be interesting

[Ackima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure yet Philosophical. Simple yet Deep. A children's book yet adults can get as much from it as a kid would.

[Baileyy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My book is named the whirlwind and the author is Carol Matas. This book is about a family of Jews who run away from Hitler to the United States. the boy named Ben gets in the most trouble when he runs away and his father follows him. In the end he has an epiphany.

I think the best part of the book is when he almost dies. He almost died because he got jumped while he was sleeping in a crate. I think this is the best part because then the book would have to be over. They wouldn't have gone on and on about some dead guy. I think the worst part is when he is talking to the rabbi because he is annoying and it is creepy.

I chose "theme". I think the main idea is that Ben was angry at the world and thought that he couldn't trust anybody. He learn't that there can't be love without hate or there can't be good without bad. He thought this because he had told his family to go to the U.S. much earlier and because they didn't listen to him. They had to leave the grand-parents and Ben's best friend to be sent to camps and die. I think the author is trying to say that without one thing the opposite could not be possible, without bad there could be no good. Some bad things to could be good to others, some good things can be bad to others

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It is about a boy who moves from Germany to America. It has really taught me how people were during those times. Not many people were accepting of Germans or even the Chinese. This was mainly because of the war. Children would tease them and start fights with them just because of their ethnicity.

[Jessie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of Carol Matas's strongest novels.

[Austin Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Whirlwind by Carol Matas describes the journey of a young boy through the difficult times of war. The main character Ben is a Jew in Germany in the beginning of the book. At this point in time he sees unthinkable things and is scared but those things. History textbooks generally cover the horrors of war but rarely cover the stories of the haunted civilians and solider after the war. This book shows you how even after Ben got to safety, the horrors of war that he saw came with him. Although Ben was very young he should have been old enough to trust his parents and believe that America was a safe place. Instead he was very paranoid about everyone and didn't even trust the kids that were trying to be his friends for fear that they would betray him. His paranoia became so strong that he ran away to Canada believing it would be safer. In the end he found that he needed to trust him parents and believe them when they said America was the safest place for them. This is an inspiring book that can persuade you to get through anything if a boy like Ben can overcome witnessing the horrors of war. The book gets very religious during the resolution and shows a big change in Ben's view of the world. The book uses the allusion of Ben's dream and the story of Jacob in the Bible to show that Ben has matured. He has an immature look at the war efforts at first and concludes that no one wants to help the Jews. Then he accepts that not everyone is evil and opens up and becomes a happier person. Overall this book is very inspiring and shows that war destroyed many peoples lives but many of those people pushed through it and made the best of their situation. I give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars.