The book’s title and epigraphs come from Jewish American poet Muriel Rukeyser, whose series of “Elegies” was inspired by the dislocations of the twentieth century. Out of this moral confusion, Palacio has created unforgettable characters whose suffering and despair parallel their strengths and determination. An ambiguous tangle of surrender and resistance characterized the population’s response to the Germans’ assault on their country and on their Jewish neighbors. In White Bird, she has written and drawn a powerful graphic novel, continuing her exploration of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders, this time under the conditions of Nazi-occupied France. Palacio examined the issues of bullying and difference through the lens of disability, using her authorial voice to directly encourage empathy. Holocaust literature for young readers reflect an internal tension: is the work specifically about the history of the Jewish people’s near-annihilation, or, more broadly, about the choice between collaboration and resistance when outsiders are confronted with attacks on a marginalized group? In her works, Wonder and Auggie and Me, R.J.
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