Review: The Sound of Freedom

The Sound of Freedom by Kathy Kacer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Sound of Freedom
by Kathy Kacer

Release Date: 3/16/2018

My rating: 4.5 stars

SUMMARY: The Sound of Freedom is a middle-grade novel about a Jewish family in Krakow, Poland in 1936. Life has become increasingly more dangerous, as the violence and persecution of Jews ramp up. Anna is afraid if they don’t escape soon, something really bad will happen. Her father is a talented clarinetist in the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra. Then they hear that Bronislaw Huberman is auditioning Jewish musicians from all over Europe for a new orchestra in Palestine. If her father auditions and is accepted, she and her grandmother can leave with him. Can father make the cut?

MY THOUGHTS: Stories of Jews in the Holocaust have fascinated me since I was kid and first read A Diary of Anne Frank and The Hiding Place. As an adult, I worked at a Jewish Center and met Holocaust survivors and got to hear their stories. My interest in the Holocaust is why I requested a copy of this book from NetGalley.

The Sound of Freedom is a gentle introduction to the beginning of the Holocaust for middle-grade students. The story is told through the eyes of young Anna, focusing on the growing anti-Semitism she sees going on around her and that eventually happens to her. It is set in 1936, before Germany’s invasion of Poland and as Hitler is rising in power, so the real horrors of the Holocaust have not yet started.

While the story of Anna’s family is fiction, Bronislaw Huberman really was a world-renown violinist and really did create the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra and save over a thousand Jews by recruiting them for the newly formed orchestra. Anna’s story is representative of the lives saved by Bronislaw Huberman.

While the story is gentle, it does not make things all nice and tidy and happy. Some of the families leave the orchestra to go back to their homeland, and Anna is concerned for their safety and the reader is left to wonder what happened to them. The story also mentions the tensions between the Arabs and the Jewish peoples in Palestine, so Anna's family may have escaped Poland, but you wonder what will happen to them in Palestine.

I give the story 4.5 stars. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the time-period. I knocked off a half star because there were several times that Anna felt like the adult in the story. She is more concerned about the things she sees and hears about than her father and grandmother are. There are also times when Anna is disobedient to her father.

For home educators and teachers, The Sound of Freedom would make an excellent addition to a Holocaust study.

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At my request, I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. I was not required to give a positive review. This review reflects my honest thoughts and opinions on the book, and I received no compensation for this review.



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