The Thought of High Windows

by Lynne Kositsky

When trapped or frightened, Esther sees windows -- and flying out of them -- as her only salvation. Young, Jewish and on the run from the Nazis, Esther is one of a group of children who manage to flee Germany for Belgium and then France at the beginning of World War II. Despite her perilous situation, she frets over her frumpy looks, is ridiculed by the popular girls and loves a boy who -- at the best of times -- treats her like a sister. As the war rages on and Esther bears witness to its horrors, her pain and isolation grow -- until only the highest windows bring the promise of release.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, World War II, Historical, Young Adult

176 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

About the author

Lynne Kositsky is an award-winning Canadian author of poetry and young adult historical fiction. Kositsky, who was born in Montreal, Quebec and grew up in London, England, now lives in the Niagara region of Ontario.

Reviews

[Payton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Payton Anderson
Book Review
2-24-15
The book I read was The Thought of High Windows by Lynne Kositsky. In 2004, this book was published by Kids Can Press Ltd. in Canada and in the United States. Although the plot was confusing, the characters were developed, and the writing style was unique.
In this book, a large group of Jews are hiding in a barn trying to find a way to France to get away from the angry Nazi’s. After many days of hiding out, the Nazi’s finally found out that they were in the barn and raided it and took all children that were 16 years of age and older. They were sent to a castle-like structure to wait until they were transferred to a camp. Some Jews were sent but others stayed. Esther, the main character in the book, escaped to a nearby town and started working for undercover Jews to help out other Jews.
The plot was confusing because as I got farther along through the book, the plot for the book seemed to keep changing. The plot for the first half of the book was Esther trying to get away from the Nazi’s and cross over to France. Then for the second half of the book, it seemed like the plot changed to Esther working for the Jews undercover in Germany to help get Jews to safety. As I was reading, I couldn’t figure out when the plot changed in the book so it was kind of hard to understand what the objective was at certain moments throughout the book.
The characters were really developed because the role that they played in the book was true to their character and how they seemed. Esther was a protagonist throughout the whole book and showed it in many different ways. “Listen, we could escape through there. It’ll be tight for me, but you others should make it easily.” (page 110) This quote shows how kind and considerate of everyone else around her even if she doesn’t think the best things about those people. Eva is an antagonist because she is mean to everyone and has mixed feelings all throughout the book. “I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.” (page 111) In this quote, Esther said something nice to Eva and all Eva could think of was saying something to put Esther down. These two quotes show that the main characters in this book have different personalities and the author does a great job in the development of these characters through these qualities.
The writing style was unique because the author uses different languages to show how important the languages were in the area that they were living in. This is different from other books because if someone doesn’t know how to speak those languages, the book could get confusing and boring. In this case, it was effective because they only used other languages in times that fit. “Gott im Himmel.” (page 92) This is a German word for ‘good god’ and a lot of Jews say it when they are mad or don’t believe something. It is a good writing style because it expands the reader’s comprehension of sentences. It makes the reader try and figure out what the word means, which is a very unique technique.
If you like other books that are interesting and have a little bit of suspense in them, this book is perfect for you. Throughout most of the book, it leaves you wanting to read more because the suspense doesn’t stop after each chapter but it continues onto the next one. I recommend this book to kids in middle school and high school because this will help with their comprehension and understanding of different types of writing styles. This book will help prepare kids before they become an adult and have to comprehend more difficult things.

[Erika · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book as part of a book club I belong to.

It’s terrible. There is only a loose plot (I’m not even sure what the central conflict was), the characters are not believable or realistic and very very flat, and I found myself questioning the historical accuracy often.

Not worth the time.

[Nova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esther, young, Jewish and on the run from the Nazis is one of a group of children who flee Germany for Belgium and then later to France. She joins the Underground and helps save lives of fellow Jews.

[Janie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter was a bit annoying, but I loved this story. I really did.