Publish date: 2006
Source: audiobooksync.com
Length: 3 hours 8 minutes
"Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn't know anything about the war, and thinks he's only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them--straight into the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland.
To Felix, everything is a story: Why did he get a whole carrot in his soup? It must be sign that his parents are coming to get him. Why are the Nazis burning books? They must be foreign librarians sent to clean out the orphanage's outdated library. But as Felix's journey gets increasingly dangerous, he begins to see horrors that not even stories can explain.
Despite his grim surroundings, Felix never loses hope. Morris Gleitzman takes a painful subject and expertly turns it into a story filled with love, friendship, and even humor." (Goodreads)
I recently downloaded Once from audiobooksync.com because, well, it was free and I like free things, especially books. I have the physical book in my classroom library, but was never too interested in trying it out. I love short audiobooks though, so I tried out Once and actually liked it.
Once takes place during the Holocaust and is told from Felix's point of view. Felix lives at an orphanage because his parents need to travel to save their bookselling business...so he thinks. The beauty of Once, for me, was Felix's innocence throughout the whole story. He truly thought his parents were fine and had only taken him to the orphanage three years earlier because they needed to work and travel. Sad, but brutally effective.
As an audiobook, I really liked this too. Morris Gleitzman, the author, actually narrates this as well and he did a fantastic job. He did a great job conveying Felix and I thought it was pretty cool that he was able to narrate his own book. I wish more authors did!
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