Not Nothing

Holocaust story prompts intergenerational dialogue.

Book review by Dr Anne Sarzin

How do we talk to children about the horrors of the Holocaust without triggering fear and inflicting pain and secondary trauma? How do we engender in them the courage to listen empathically to these difficult stories? How do we transmit the facts of the recent past’s unmitigated evil so that it generates a deeper understanding and identification with the pain of ourselves, our ancestors and all ‘others’ plunged in that cauldron of suffering? After all, it is the acceptance of our common humanity that unites us, fosters goodwill and promotes potential harmony and tolerance in the world around us.

New York Times bestselling author Gayle Forman embodies many of the answers to those questions in her book Not Nothing, written for middle graders (aged 12 and above), a story narrated by 107-year-old Holocaust survivor Josey Kravitz.  Josey forges an unlikely bond of friendship with a 12-year-old boy named Alex, who has anger management issues and who volunteers at the  Shady Glen Retirement Home. It is there he meets Josey and where he associates for the first time in his life with geriatric residents. They all have stories to relate about themselves and their histories and, in Alex, they find the perfect listener, who truly hears what they’re saying. In these spontaneous conversations, true friendships are formed that have the power to heal the hurt in the aged storytellers and their young listener.

Aside from his anger, Alex contends with multiple issues that add complexity to this multi-layered and sympathetic portrait of a young boy alienated from society, bewildered by the interventions of authoritarian figures who promise him new ‘opportunities’, which consistently fall short of his expectations, fail to eventuate or never compensate him adequately for abandonment by his mother, his negative experiences in foster care and his feelings of loneliness and hopelessness. When Alex confronts and attacks a student at his school with a cricket bat, his world unravels.  Caught up in the justice (or injustice) system, with the threat of a reformatory sentence hanging over his future, his feelings of being unwanted and unloved escalate.

At the instigation of his compassionate social worker, Alex spends the intervening period at Shady Glen before his reappearance in court. The personal transformation that occurs through his friendship with Josey and the other residents, his deepening immersion in their lives, his bond with young Maya-Jade, who also volunteers at the facility, are guaranteed to keep readers of all ages profoundly engaged as the narrative unfolds. Despite Alex’s newfound confidence and self-esteem and his attempts to control his impulsive anger, the revelation of his past ‘hate-crime’ abruptly shatters the many bonds of friendship he had nurtured with love and passion. As Alex falls from grace, these institutional fractures demote his hard-won status as their friend and the trusted confidante of so many in Shady Glen,

This sensitively told story is an exploration of youthful grief, anger, remorse and rehabilitation.  It also focuses on the aged and the magnitude of their suffering, conveying through Josey’s story the horrendous consequences of Jew hatred. Through the many lovable, helpful and idiosyncratic characters in Shady Glen, the story moves to its redemptive climax that reinforces the strengths of friendship, loyalty and love. Importantly, this story provides a strong affirmation of the interconnectedness of our lives and provides a pathway to the truths we all have to learn.

Gayle Forman has mined her own experiences, thoughts and feelings to create a book that young readers might find relevant to themselves and their world, especially readers who know what it means to grapple with life’s setbacks. Sadly, Alex’s story illustrates that some lessons are learned the hard way, but it also shows that there is love and light amid the darkness, in unexpected places when we least expect it.  This book is full of hope and validates the positive values of life.  Forman concludes, ‘The world is full of people with missing mothers, broken families. But that didn’t mean that the people were broken’.

Forman has created a thoughtful and rewarding book that offers real possibilities for dialogue between parents and children and grandparents and grandchildren. Entrusting these stories to our children, giving them an outline of recent Jewish history that not only depicts suffering but also privileges resistance, recovery and endurance, is a way of ensuring that we all continue to bear witness to the past and to honour those who upheld Jewish values in the face of oppression and persecution, and to be inspired by them.  There’s an inclusivity about these themes. As Josey says of Alex, ‘The boy was neither Jewish nor a hero, but I had chosen him, and this made it his story too’.

Not Nothing

Gayle Forman

Aladdin New York, Sydney, 2024

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division