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WORK TITLE: Almost Autumn
WORK NOTES: trans by Rosie Hedger
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 5/18/1974
WEBSITE:
CITY: Nesodden
STATE:
COUNTRY: Norway
NATIONALITY: Norwegian
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born May 18, 1974, in Tonsberg, Norway; married; children: three.
EDUCATION:Attended the Norwegian Institute of Children’s Books.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer; editor of educational literature.
AWARDS:Ministry of Culture Prize, for Almost Autumn.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Marianne Kaurin was born in Norway in 1974, and she attended the Norwegian Institute of Children’s Books before going on to work as an editor on education materials for high school students. Kaurin is also the author of the young adult novel, Nærmere høst, and the book was translated into English as Almost Autumn. The story centers on the little-discussed Nazi occupation of Norway, and while it is narrated in present tense, the action takes place outside of Oslo in 1942. As Jews, fifteen-year-old Ilse Stern and her family face increasingly dire circumstances. Ilse’s father, Isak, scrubs anti-Semitic graffiti from his storefront everyday, Ilse’s school is closed, and the family takes shelter in an air-raid shelter after dark. The Stern’s non-Jewish neighbors have abandoned them, and then Isak is arrested during a Nazi raid. Ilse’s mother and sisters are taken a month later, and the only reason Ilse escapes is because she wasn’t home at the time. Left on her own, Ilse is crushed with guilt. She’d had a fight with her mother before storming out of the house and now the last words between them will remain acrimonious. Kaurin portrays the death of Ilse’s mother and sisters in a gas chamber at Auschitz while Isle goes into hiding and does her best to survive. Ilse turns to her childhood crush, Hermann Rod, who is also a member of the resistance. She is then connected to Ole Rustad, a man who risks his life to save as many Jews as he can. Through Olse’s machinations, Ilse is smuggled into Sweden.
Almost Autumn largely fared well with critics, and the novel won the Ministry of Culture Prize in Norway. As online Jewish Book Council reviewer Barbara Krasner opined: “While the book’s opening is slow, the pace picks up quickly and is enhanced by multiple story lines and their narrators.” A Publishers Weekly contributor was even more positive, asserting that the novel is “an intimate, chilling look at an individual family’s experience of the Holocaust.” According to a Kirkus Reviews columnist, however, “this feels more like a mood piece for adults than a book for teens; regardless, a subtle, hard-hitting book for readers who have the background to understand its oblique approach.” Lauding Almost Autumn further in Horn Book magazine, Martha V. Parravano, advised: “The novel’s immediacy becomes almost unbearable at points (for instance, when Ilse’s mother and sisters enter the shower room at Auschwitz).”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Horn Book Magazine, January-February, 2017, Martha V. Parravano, review of Almost Autumn.
Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2016, review of Almost Autumn.
Publishers Weekly, November 7, 2016, review of Almost Autumn.
School Library Journal, November, 2016, Paige Rowse, review of Almost Autumn.
ONLINE
Jewish Book Council, http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/ (July 3, 2017), Barbara Krasner, review of Almost Autumn.*
Marianne Kaurin was born in 1974 in Tonsberg, Norway. She studied at the Norwegian Institute of Children's Books, and her debut novel, Almost Autumn, received the Norwegian Ministry of Culture prize, and was named Young People's Book of the Year in a vote by students from all over Norway. Marianne now lives just outside of Oslo in Nesodden with her husband and three children, and is an editor of educational literature for high school students.
Almost Autumn
Martha V. Parravano
93.1 (January-February 2017): p95.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Horn Book, Inc.. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
* Almost Autumn
by Marianne Kaurin; trans. from the Norwegian by Rosie Hedger
High School Levine/Scholastic 281 pp.
1/17 978-0-545-88965-0 $17.99 g
e-book ed. 978-0-545-88966-7 $10.99
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Ilse Stern, a typical rebellious, lovelorn adolescent, lives with her Jewish family in 1942 Nazi-occupied Oslo, where her father, Isak, runs a tailor shop. A present-tense narration creates immediacy, while quotidian details provide connection ("she feels the warmth of the sun on her face and basks in the light, dust blowing up from the road and the leaves crackling beneath her feet as she wades through them"). But throughout everything runs an oppressive sense of dread-telegraphed through Kaurin's spare, tense prose--as we learn that Ilse's school has closed, that Isak must scrub ugly anti-Semitic graffiti from his shop window each morning, that the family spends nights in an air-raid shelter with neighbors who no longer speak to them. Then, Isak is arrested in a citywide roundup in October; Ilse's mother and sisters, a month later. The novel explores the nature of chance and fate as Ilse escapes arrest only because she happened to have stayed out all night after a fight with her mother. Kaurin skillfully blends into her narrative the stories of two other people: Ilse's longtime crush Hermann Rod, secretly a member of the Resistance; and jovial married-man Ole Rustad, who in the end risks everything to drive Jews in hiding to safety--including Ilse, who is eventually smuggled out of Norway into neutral Sweden. It should be noted that the novel's immediacy becomes almost unbearable at points (for instance, when Ilse's mother and sisters enter the shower room at Auschwitz). Not an easy read, and one that requires historical context for full comprehension; an appended note supplies some of the necessary background but by no means all.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Parravano, Martha V. "Almost Autumn." The Horn Book Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2017, p. 95+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA476679397&it=r&asid=a7be7efd630b3f7319ffb0db85ce4273. Accessed 3 July 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A476679397
Almost Autumn
263.45 (Nov. 7, 2016): p62.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Almost Autumn
Marianne Kaurin, trans. from the Norwegian
by Rosie Hedger. Scholastic/Levine, $17.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-545-88965-0
Kaurin's subtly devastating novel traces the gradual disintegration of jewish life in Oslo, Norway, during the last months of 1942. While focusing on dreamy-eyed 15 -year-old lise Stern and her crush on neighbor Hermann Rod, the story unfolds from several points of view, including those of Hermann (whose sudden interest in painting is a cover for his work in the Resistance) and a non-Jewish neighbor who is unwillingly thrust into an important role in the removal of Jews from the city. Even as daily life for Jews in Oslo takes on ominous changes (Use's school is taken over by German soldiers, customers dwindle at her father's tailor shop, and Jews' identification papers are stamped with the letter J), lise and her older sister, Sonja, are lost in their personal dreams, pushing aside the increasingly threatening situation until the day their father is arrested and their own futures suddenly seem uncertain. In her first novel, Norwegian author Kaurin doesn't flinch from describing the details of the ultimate fate of the Stern family, offering an intimate, chilling look at an individual family's experience of the Holocaust. Ages 12up. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Almost Autumn." Publishers Weekly, 7 Nov. 2016, p. 62. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA469757566&it=r&asid=39a2b27eb65d9bc308c353c3b483e8da. Accessed 3 July 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A469757566
Kaurin, Marianne: ALMOST AUTUMN
(Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Kaurin, Marianne ALMOST AUTUMN Scholastic (Children's Fiction) $17.99 1, 3 ISBN: 978-0-545-88965-0
Things fall apart for the Stern family over the last few months of 1942 in Oslo, Norway.Fifteen-year-old Ilse waits in vain for her date; did he stand her up because she's plain (even her white skin is dry)? Hermann, white-blond and Norwegian, wishes he could tell Ilse why he never arrived, but his secrets would endanger others. Sonja, 18, wants Ilse to be more helpful in their father's tailor shop. Isak rushes to work before his daughters wake so he can scrub "Jewish scum" off the windows, but he can't spare the girls from what's to come. The spare, lovely prose, translated from Norwegian and shifting narrative perspective from character to character, is wrenching for readers with context to extrapolate all that's unsaid. After a vile journey, "Sonja catches sight of a sign hanging over the platform: Auschwitz. It means nothing to her." Sonja's storyline ends abruptly only pages later, while she waits in the dark for a mandatory shower; Isak's comes to a similarly undetailed conclusion shortly after he's been categorized in Birkenau as "forty years old, no gold teeth." Such details are chilling for readers in the know but less so for those without a fuller understanding of Nazi atrocities. A historical note discusses the Holocaust in Norway but likewise assumes basic understanding. The myriad viewpoints decrease the appeal for younger readers (Ilse's concerns seem naive when contrasted with her father's) but beautifully enhance the tragic unreality. This feels more like a mood piece for adults than a book for teens; regardless, a subtle, hard-hitting book for readers who have the background to understand its oblique approach. (resources) (Historical fiction. 14 & up)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Kaurin, Marianne: ALMOST AUTUMN." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466329217&it=r&asid=cd96ce807433686c0c243f2b5d15e82d. Accessed 3 July 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466329217
Marianne Kaurin, Rosie Hedger: ALMOST AUTUMN
(Oct. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Marianne Kaurin, Rosie Hedger ALMOST AUTUMN Scholastic (Adult Fiction) 17.99 ISBN: 978-0-545-88965-0
Things fall apart for the Stern family over the last few months of 1942 in Oslo, Norway.Fifteen-year-old Ilse waits in vain for her date; did he stand her up because she's plain (even her white skin is dry)? Hermann, white-blond and Norwegian, wishes he could tell Ilse why he never arrived, but his secrets would endanger others. Sonja, 18, wants Ilse to be more helpful in their father's tailor shop. Isak rushes to work before his daughters wake so he can scrub “Jewish scum” off the windows, but he can't spare the girls from what's to come. The spare, lovely prose, translated from Norwegian and shifting narrative perspective from character to character, is wrenching for readers with context to extrapolate all that's unsaid. After a vile journey, "Sonja catches sight of a sign hanging over the platform: Auschwitz. It means nothing to her." Sonja's storyline ends abruptly only pages later, while she waits in the dark for a mandatory shower; Isak's comes to a similarly undetailed conclusion shortly after he's been categorized in Birkenau as "forty years old, no gold teeth." Such details are chilling for readers in the know but less so for those without a fuller understanding of Nazi atrocities. A historical note discusses the Holocaust in Norway but likewise assumes basic understanding. The myriad viewpoints decrease the appeal for younger readers (Ilse's concerns seem naive when contrasted with her father's) but beautifully enhance the tragic unreality.
This feels more like a mood piece for adults than a book for teens; regardless, a subtle, hard-hitting book for readers who have the background to understand its oblique approach. (resources) (Historical fiction. 14 & up)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Marianne Kaurin, Rosie Hedger: ALMOST AUTUMN." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466551467&it=r&asid=2721869177c8674ced8315581ddfde36. Accessed 3 July 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466551467
Kaurin, Marianne. Almost Autumn
Paige Rowse
62.11 (Nov. 2016): p96.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
KAURIN, Marianne. Almost Autumn, tr. from Norwegian by Rosie Hedger. 288p. ebook available. Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Bks. Jan. 2017. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9780545889650.
Gr 6-10--Ilse Stern, 15, is smitten with Hermann, the boy next door, in this historical novel set in Oslo. With World War II hovering in the background, life quickly spins out of control, pulling Ilse and Hermann in very different directions. As Ilse and her family confront growing anti-Semitic persecution, Hermann becomes increasingly secretive. Jewish families face pressure from police, discrimination in the work environment, displacement from their homes, and even deportation to concentration camps. Most of the narrative is told from Use's perspective, and there is very little historical context for readers to glean understanding about the German occupation of Norway or the larger Nazi movement. In addition, occasional switches of perspectives may pose a challenge for some, while the large number of characters often receive superficial treatment. In an afterword, Kaurin notes that she was inspired to write the novel by imagining the many "what-if" scenarios that shaped people's lives during the Holocaust, and her exploration of these situations, along with her unusual setting, may draw readers. For other titles specific to Norway during World War II, suggest Margi Preus's Shadow on the Mountain or Sandy Brehl's Odin's Promise. VERDICT Purchase where historical fiction and Holocaust books are in high demand.--Paige Rowse, Needham High School, MA
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Rowse, Paige. "Kaurin, Marianne. Almost Autumn." School Library Journal, Nov. 2016, p. 96. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468699251&it=r&asid=cb35dda20867aeee426ce010d9dc9474. Accessed 3 July 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468699251
Almost Autumn
Marianne Kaurin; Rosie Hedger, trans.
1
Arthur A. Levine Books 2017
288 Pages $17.99
ISBN: 978-0-545-88965-0
amazon indiebound
barnesandnoble
Review by Barbara Krasner
In October 1942, the inhabitants of an Oslo apartment building have secrets. Norwegian teenager Ilse Stern is in love with neighbor Hermann Rød. Her father, Isak, has stashed all his family’s money in a cigar tin hidden in a dresser drawer. Hermann makes Ilse and his parents think he has an apprenticeship with a landscape painter, but he is working for the resistance. Ilse’s sister Sonja has found a new job outside the family’s tailoring shop to make costumes for the national theater. Neighbor Ole Rustad has a secret, too. He and his taxi will be transporting Jews to deportation points, first for the Nazis and then for the resistance.
In this intricately woven novel with alternating point-of-view narrators, Norwegian author Marianne Kaurin plays with the concept of chance. The most important instance of chance here is Ilse’s fight with her mother, her trip outside Oslo with Hermann, and her ultimate absence during the round-up of Jewish women and children in November 1942. While the book’s opening is slow, the pace picks up quickly and is enhanced by multiple story lines and their narrators.
Although there have been a few novels about the Nazi occupation of Norway, Kaurin’s tale shares the little-told narrative of Norwegian Jews during the Holocaust. Her author’s note explains her own family’s roles during World War II and the Holocaust.
Recommended for ages 12 – 15.