The Pebble

There are books that you seek; then there are books that find the reader and therein lies a charm as you realise that it was fated to be in your hands…

I picked up “𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗘𝗕𝗕𝗟𝗘” from the library last week. Don’t let the first look deceive you, for it deals with the heavy topic of children in holocaust. Set in Lithuania, the story is about Eitan and his best friend Rivka in the summer of 1943 when Nazis fenced off entire blocks of the city and created the ghettos. Here amidst looming fear, life still went on, children still played music and dreamed and hoped on rooftops. But they also knew that no one was allowed to leave and those who did, never came back. This book is Eitan’s account of friendship and fear, of families who never returned, of empty homes, people with ‘dead eyes’ and finally, his family’s turn to walk “through the gates” and turning into a pebble, the Jewish tradition of remembering the dead, the “lasting symbol of endurance”.

This is a moving book, not a light read, and you might feel a lump in your throat. Great for Grade 3 and above, especially if you are teaching a historical unit, effects of war, personification, or traditions.