Last week, Year 6 studied a picture book called Rose Blanche. We used the book to develop our inference skills and also to learn more about World War 2 from the German perspective. Here you can see us re-enacting a scene from the start of the book, where Rose Blanche watches the German soldiers leave to fight the Russian army. Read our book reviews to find out our personal opinions of the book.
Roberto Innocenti’s ‘Rose Blanche’ is a moving book and an amazing way to explain the Holocaust in a child-friendly way. This book is about a girl called Rose Blanche who finds out a deeply moving secret that will change her life as a war-child. When she finds children starving in a concentration camp, Rose Blanche comes to a dilemma. Will she help the children, or will she pretend nothing has happened? Rose finally decides that she will help the children and brings food for them everyday. But one day, as the Russians come in from the east, she goes to the camp and never comes back.
This wonderful book has extremely detailed pictures drawn from Rose’s perspective. These are very informative and helps us to find clues about the text.
The book is actually based on a real foundation called the ‘White Rose’, made up of young German people who helped fight against the Nazis. I think that the message of the book is that war is NEVER the answer! It would be futile. The only thing that comes out of war is lost lives.
I would recommend this book to children over the age of 9, because the subject will be quite complicated for younger children. This book will move you.
By A.B.
‘Rose Blanche’ is a sad book with a sad ending. This story tells you about a girl called Rose Blanche who lives in Germany during World War II. One day, Rose Blanche waves goodbye to the men leaving in a rusty truck to defeat Russia, not knowing about the concentration camps outside her village. But soon, she sees a little boy run out from a car and get shoved back in by the soldiers. She follows the car into a dark forest and then she sadly discovers a concentration camp. She sees helpless, hungry people. What should she do?
This story has not got many words but that is okay because sometimes you don’t need words. The pictures are very detailed and very clear so you can picture what is happening.
The theme of this book is not to commit acts of war as people can die and also to show people to always make right choices. I would like to recommend this book to the whole world, to help make it a better place by helping people to understand the religion of different people and by stopping war from carrying on because of people’s race, skin colour or religion.
By C.C.