Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Once We Were Home
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
8 posts | 5 read | 8 to read
From Jennifer Rosner, National Jewish Book Award Finalist and author of The Yellow Bird Sings, comes a novel based on the true stories of children stolen in the wake of World War II. Ana will never forget her mother's face when she and her baby brother, Oskar, were sent out of their Polish ghetto and into the arms of a Christian friend. For Oskar, though, their new family is the only one he remembers. When a woman from a Jewish reclamation organization seizes them, believing she has their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves. Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a relative seeks to retrieve him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem. Renata, a post-graduate student in archaeology, has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past--except for her own. After her mother's death, Renata's grief is entwined with all the questions her mother left unanswered, including why they fled Germany so quickly when Renata was a little girl. Two decades later, they are each building lives for themselves, trying to move on from the trauma and loss that haunts them. But as their stories converge in Israel, in unexpected ways, they must each ask where and to whom they truly belong. Beautifully evocative and tender, filled with both luminosity and anguish, Once We Were Home reveals a little-known history. Based on the true stories of children stolen during wartime, this heart-wrenching novel raises questions of complicity and responsibility, belonging and identity, good intentions and unforeseen consequences, as it confronts what it really means to find home.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
blurb
tpixie
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image

Stories about displaced children during WWII.
Unfortunately, they still are being displaced by wars today.
These books are all told by different perspectives.
In Operational Pied Pieper declared in September 1939, 800,000 children were transported from London in just 4 days.
Children were also displaced in France in Europe.
👧🏻 👦🏻 what happens to these children while they‘re away and again once they come home? Who do they belong to?

review
Reecaspieces
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image
Pickpick
tpixie Have you read ( there are connections!) it‘s a lovely written book! 11mo
Reecaspieces @tpixie I have not! But I will add it!!! Thank you!!! 11mo
33 likes2 comments
blurb
tpixie
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image

To whom do displaced children belong after war? Jennifer Rosner once again weaves a moving, lyrical tale that will stay with you.
This is currently a problem in the Ukraine and other war torn areas. 💔💔💔
Thanks to @adventuresbythebook for introducing me to a new favorite author at #SuperBookIV

60 likes1 stack add
review
ReadingisMyPassion
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image
Pickpick

This book looks at a piece of the Holocaust that is seldom addressed. Many Jewish parents placed their children in Christian homes or sent them to Catholic orphanages to save their lives. But what happened to these children after the war was over? Based on true stories, it makes one question the true meaning of home and family.

review
SilversReviews
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image
Pickpick

Beautifully told in her mesmerizing style, Jennifer Rosner introduces us to four characters who suffered through the war and beyond.

Another beautiful, beautiful but heartbreaking-to-the-core read based on true events.

ONCE WE WERE HOME does have some happy stories tucked inside as well, along with comments you will ponder, and thoughts about life‘s worries and lessons.

FULL REVIEW: https://tinyurl.com/377w7j5u

tpixie Have you read her other book? There are connections!. It is also beautifully written. 11mo
SilversReviews @tpixie I have. 😀Loved THE YELLOW BIRD SINGS. Loved the connections. Thanks for your comment. (edited) 11mo
tpixie @SilversReviews oh good!! I‘m so surprised I am skimming through The Yellow Bird Sings now to look a little more carefully at the connections. She writes so beautifully. 11mo
See All 9 Comments
SilversReviews @tpixie Yes - beautiful writing. Isn‘t it the young girl who is mentioned in the books? Maybe I am wrong, but I think that‘s the connection. (edited) 11mo
SilversReviews Found this in my review: It also was fun to see our favorite violinist again from THE YELLOW BIRD SINGS. 11mo
tpixie @SilversReviews yes- the violinist 🎻 11mo
tpixie @SilversReviews yes!! Great review! 11mo
SilversReviews @tpixie 😀😀 11mo
SilversReviews @tpixie Thanks. 11mo
30 likes1 stack add9 comments
review
Cathyloves2read
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image
Pickpick

This book opened my eyes to events that I didn‘t even realize occurred. I had no idea that children were taken from families that fostered them to be put where they “belonged” based on religion. Many times, these children established a bond with the foster families that never broke. The stories portrayed in this book were so sad. So many children didn‘t know who they really were. Many never found out. Thank you, Goodreads, for this ARC.

blurb
SilversReviews
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image

FULL REVIEW 3/14

Beautifully told in her mesmerizing style, Jennifer Rosner introduces us to four characters who suffered through the war and beyond.

Another beautiful, beautiful but heartbreaking-to-the-core read based on true events.

Historical fiction fans will devour this marvelously written, impeccably researched read where Ms. Rosner introduces readers to a little known program organized after the war for displaced children.

36 likes3 stack adds
blurb
SilversReviews
Once We Were Home | Jennifer Rosner
post image

So excited.

LOVED The Yellow Bird Sings.

REVIEW OF The Yellow Bird Sings…https://tinyurl.com/rverfd42

Thank you @jennifer.amy.rosner and @bookbrowse

ReadingisMyPassion Looking forward to reading it.
2y
SilversReviews @ReadingisMyPassion I‘m sure it will be wonderful!! 2y
35 likes2 comments