Saturday, November 24, 2018

Night

Night 

Author: Elie Wiesel 
Narrator: George Guidall
Grade Level: 8
Genre: Non-Fiction 
Awards: none

Summary: This book tells the story of Elie Wiesel and his experience in Auschwitz.  The story begins with Elie being twelve years old and describes what was taking place in Sighet during WWII.  After the German army invades Sighet, Elie is soon separated from his mother and sisters, who are immediately taken to the gas chambers, and is forced to labor for the Germans alongside his father.  Throughout the story, Elie describes in detail some horrific and inhumane acts that took place during his time in Auschwitz.  At the end of the book, Elie's father dies days before they were liberated.   

Evaluation: This is definitely an audio book I will have in my classroom.  By eighth grade, most students will have already learned some facts about the Holocaust.  This book will help give more details to the events told in their history books.  Parts of this book  are difficult to read due to the content, but necessary in order to understand the seriousness of the Holocaust.  George Guidall does a wonderful job at reading this book.  The first chapter is read slower, but speeds up around chapter two.

The age appropriateness should be no lower than eighth grade.  Any grade below eighth will have an even harder time understanding the images and symbols Elie Wiesel uses to tell his story.  The situations depicted would also be difficult for younger readers to fully understand.  For eighth grade, I would highly recommend  going through this book as a class, leaving plenty of time to discuss and process.

For many schools, a Holocaust unit is required for eighth grade ELA class.  This audio book is a powerful resource to use during that unit.  Because there are a lot of unfamiliar terms used throughout the book, an audio book helps students know how to pronounce the unfamiliar words.  I would recommend having a class set of Night for student to read while the audio book is playing.

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