Prisoner B-3087

by Alan Gratz, Ruth Gruener, Jack Gruener Narrated by Steven Kaplan

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Based on a devastatingly true story, Prisoner B-3087 is steeped in the horrors of the Holocaust, but beneath the heavy darkness that hangs over the concentration camps is hope. It's a beautiful story of young man whose life is upended by war and genocide and the way he survives.

Survive. At any cost.

10 concentration camps. 10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly. It's something no one could imagine surviving. But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face. As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner -- his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087. He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could have never imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror. He just barely escapes death, only to confront it again seconds later. Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will -- and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside? Based on an astonishing true story.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Prisoner B-3087:

A Junior Library Guild Selection

Golden Sower Award, 2014-2015 Winner Nebraska

Isinglass Teen Read Award, 2014-2015 Winner New Hampshire

Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award, 2014-2015 Winner Pennsylvania

Junior Book Award, 2015-2016 Winner South Carolina

Grand Canyon Reader Award, 2015-2016 Winner Arizona

Truman Readers Award, 2015-2016 Winner Missouri

Readers Choice Awards, Winner 2015-2016 Virginia

Volunteer State Book Award Winner, 2015-2016 Tennessee

"A powerful story, well told." — School Library Journal

"A bone-chilling tale not to be ignored." — Kirkus Reviews

"[A] remarkable survival story." — Booklist

"Gratz ably conveys . . . fatalism, yearning, and determination in the face of the unimaginable." — Publishers Weekly

"Heartbreaking, gripping, raw, and emotional . . . storytelling at its finest." — VOYA

School Library Journal

Gr 6–10—"If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more. I wouldn't have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath, or going to bed at eight o'clock every night." Yanek Gruener was 10 years old when the German army invaded Poland in 1939 and trapped his family inside the walls of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow. Over the course of World War II, he saw his parents deported by the Nazis and survived 10 different concentration camps. Through Gratz's spare, persistent prose, the story of the boy's early life unfolds with the urgency and directness necessary for survivor stories. While some liberties have been taken, with the permission of Gruener and his wife, Ruth, also a survivor, the experiences and images come directly from the Grueners' collective memories of the war. An author's note provides further biographical information. A powerful story, well told.—Sara Saxton, Tuzzy Consortium Library, Barrow, AK

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170507696
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

From PRISONER B-3087I looked out through the cracks of the crawlspace. Goeth was coming closer, all shining black leather boots and crisp black uniform. One of his dogs lifted its ears and looked right at me.I pulled back away from the wall. “We're trapped. We have to get out of here. ” I was almost choking on my own fear. “And go where?” Thomas hissed. “If we leave, they'll find us in the barrack!”“I don't care. We can't be caught here.” I pushed my way up and out of the crawlspace. I gasped, filling my lungs. But if I didn't really want to die , I had to move quickly. My heart was thumping. but I it made me feel alive, and feeling alive made me want to stay alive.

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