A Boy is Not a Ghost is an incredible story. This book is written by Edeet Ravel, who also wrote A Boy is Not a Bird. Both of these stories are about a young boy caught up in life during a war. He has grown up in the Russian city, Czernowitz. After his father is arrested he and his mother are rounded up with other people from the city and sent to Siberia.
Natt Silver is twelve years old as he rides with his mother and their neighbors in the cattle car of a train headed for Siberia. He describes in perfect detail the sounds, smells and crowded conditions on the train as they slowly travel across Russia for two long months. The food is scarce and the weather gets colder as they travel north. His father is in a Gulag or prison under extreme conditions. He and his mother do not know where they are going end up or what life will be like there.
We hear Natt's voice as he writes letters to his friend Max, who its seems has been lucky to escape with his family to Basel, Switzerland. Natt knows the Soviet police are reading people's mail, so he writes letters to Max in secret code, never really knowing if Max is receiving his mail.
It is incredible how easily a person can call attention to themselves by the authorities and how dangerous that can be. Natt gives us an example of this when he tells this story about waiting with his mother for a train and reading a newspaper, "A police guard sees me smiling and marches over to our bench. 'You two! Follow me! At once.' His voice makes my blood run cold. It's the tone guards use just before they arrest you. He thinks I was laughing at Stalin, or at an article about how great the Soviet Union is." Natt and his mother follow the guard and are interviewed. Giving the wrong answer could land them in jail or worse.
Natt and his mother are shuffled from place to place trying to find a place to live and work. When his mother gets a prized inside job, where someone is working inside during the freezing cold weather, and Natt is going to school, Natt thinks things might not be so bad. Then his mother is falsely arrested for stealing potatoes and taken to prison. Natt is really on his own. He must use all his cleverness and bravery to find a family to live with. He makes friends and works hard. He will need his friends and some luck to help him survive as he struggles to find his way back to his mother and tries to reunite his family.
Natt learns that he needs to have two sides to himself, to be an outside Natt and a secret Natt. He is going to practice not calling attention to himself, so that when he has to leave town no one will notice he is gone. He will keep a part of himself hidden from everyone. Natt says the life he is living in Siberia can make a person feel like a ghost.
This book is so beautifully written. It is appropriate for middle school readers and it is such an incredibly poignant and touching story that it is also an important story for adult readers. Ravel has written this novel based on the true story of her fifth grade teacher, Nahum Halpern, who shared stories of his childhood with his students.
This story covers the horrific way Jewish people were treated during the Second World War. There was the threat of Hitler and the Final Solution, which was the genocide of the Jewish people and there was Stalin who, though his campaign posters depicted him as kind man, was also ruthless and targeted the Jews and other minorities. Natt Silver shows readers how to survive the many challenges during these two major historical events.
