When I closed the cover, I just held the book to my chest as a I wiped a stray tear or two. So be warned! This stunning book is going to make you rage, and cry, and yelp with joy, then cry and rage again. A genuine tour de force from Liz Kessler. I couldn't put it down except to wipe away tears -- Joanna Nadin This book has the honour of being the only book that has ever made me cry. I never cry, but this was different.

I take a deep breath as I write this, and try to make sense of my thoughts after finishing this book. Leo, Elsa, and Max have been best friends for years. Since the day they met they’ve been a team of three. They spend a perfect day together, unaware that around them Europe is descending in a growing darkness. The Nazi’s have come, and their lives, once so tightly woven together, take very different directions. A wonderful book, half tragedy, but told with such sheer, warm humanity that it leaves you with hope The book is prefaced with a content warning. The story includes many vivid examples of the Nazis’s cruelty and is an intense read. I frequently cried while I read it, and often sobbed between readings, thinking about what took place a mere decade before I was born.Max’s family, on the other hand, moves into a furnished penthouse apartment in Munich that seems to have belonged to a wealthy Jewish family who were forced out. In 1943, Max’s family moves again, to a home near Auschwitz. Max’s dad has been appointed to a top position there, and he gets Max a job there too. In When the World Was Ours, we follow three children, Leo, Elsa, and Max, throughout the course of the war. The story opens when they are 9 years old, celebrating one of their birthdays with a magical day on the town. The three are best friends, inseparable. But Leo and Elsa are Jewish, and as Europe falls under Hitler's sway, the three take different paths. Each of the children has a very different war-time experience. Leo manages to flee to England with his mother, desperate for news of his father who was sent to Dachau. Elsa remains with her family through many of the indignities bestowed on her simply because of her faith, but she is separated from them when they are taken to Auschwitz. Max has always been desperate for his father’s approval, and his need to belong and gain admiration makes him susceptible to the indoctrination of the Nazi party. As his father rises in power, Max follows. He too ends up in Auschwitz. Quote Het enige wat er echt toe deed, was dat, toen hij en zijn vrienden even later op de boot sprongen en samen de stad aan zich voorbij zagen trekken, de band van hun vriendschap zo diep en breed voelde als de Donau zelf.

That’s the thing that really gets me. When one is a child, history seems like long ago. But from my current vantage point, ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago is just not that long ago. This stunning book is going to make you rage, and cry, and yelp with joy, then cry and rage again. A genuine tour de force from Liz Kessler. I couldn’t put it down except to wipe away tears Many thanks to Aladdin Books / Simon & Schuster and Goodreads for the opportunity to read this gripping book in advance of its May 18, 2021 publication. When The World Was Ours is Liz's masterpiece . . . an instant classic -- Anthony McGowan, winner of the 2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal And the ending, the ending!!! I had to re-read it several times because my vision was being too blurred with all the tears.This striking Holocaust story was a real passion project for Liz Kessler and it shows. Begins in Vienna in the 1930s, following the fortunes of three friends over the following years. Inevitable ugly crying at the end Three friends (Leo, Elsa, and Max) celebrate a 9th birthday in Vienna. They are on top of the world, literally on the Riesenrad. It is 1936. Two of the children are Jewish. As Hitler rises to power in Germany in the years to follow, the three friends are pulled apart. The three paths will intertwine in various ways as war begins and the conflicts grow. Having three families in the book provides the unique opportunity to explore different experiences like sponsorship, the attraction of joining the Hitler Youth, and concentration camps. There are some difficult passages and I would not recommend this to children under ten. Reading with an adult or in a classroom as part of a Holocaust unit would be ideal. Very well done and made me cry multiple times.