Friedman, Carl. (1994). Nightfather. New York: Persea Books. 129 pages.

Grade Range 6-12

Genre historical fiction

Summary & Critique

Nightfather is told from the point of view of a young unnamed girl whose father is a Holocaust survivor. The father is reminded of the camps daily. For example, the family could be eating breakfast, and he would recall the hunger he felt in the camps. The family refers to his constant flashbacks of the he spent in the concentration camps as him "having camp." While their family appears to be a very average, normal family to outsiders, they know they are not. Because their father has camp, they have camp, too. His children and wife understand what others do not.

This book will appeal to adults and children alike, as anyone could appreciate the characters and the story. If you want to learn about what people went through in concentration camps you should definitely read this b4teens_book. Initially, the narrator does not state that her father was in a concentration camp, and this might cause confusion for some readers; however, the graphic recollections of the camps lends itself to a lesson on inference. Regardless of any confusion, this is an excellent resource for teaching empathy.

Themes/Topics

Families

Friends and Enemies

Generations

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Challenges and Triumphs

War and Peace

The Holocaust

The Individual vs. Society

Author Information

Carl Friedman was born in 1952 to Holocaust survivors. She is currently a writer and a poet, and she resides in Amsterdam.

Media Connections

Movies

A Catalogue of Audio and Video Collections of Holocaust Testimony: Second Edition Provides access to over 11,600 interviews with Holocaust experts and survivors. Even though Nightfather is based on facts from the Holocaust it would be great to watch interviews with experts and actual interviews just to make the subject matter more real and relevant.

Glory (1989) This movie depicts the participation of African Americans in the Civil War. This movie related to the text in that it deals with a war and it talks about discrimination.

The Secret of Roan Inish (1995) This movie is about a young Irish girl who is trying to reclaim her family heritage. This relates to Nightfather because it is important for people to understand and appreciate where they come from. People should understand their heritage and keep it with them so they can understand themselves and their families better.

Television

Joan of Arcadia (CBS) Internal turmoil within a family. To an outsider, everything would seem average; however, the family has a side to it that no one knows about that separates them from other people.

Music

"Nobody Knows." Lyrics by Tony Rich Project, from Words. La Face, 1996. A man has feelings that nobody else knows about. He seems to be doing okay on the outside but he has haunting feelings of someone he loves but cannot have.

Online Resources

http://www.remember.org/educate/moretta.html Lesson plans for a unit on The Holocaust.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/index.html Information about Hitler and his rise to power.

http://www.ushmm.org/miscbin/add_goback/education/children.html Children and the Holocaust

http://www.ga.k12.pa.us/Academics/MS/7th/toleranc/index.htm#anchor161708 Lesson plan on tolerance.

http://www.half.com Great resource for discounted new and used books.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/slavery.htm Accounts of the African slave trade.

Related Texts

Mandela, Nelson. (1994). Long Walk to Freedom: the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston: Little, Brown. 558pp. Mandela discusses his struggles with apartheid, his time in jail, and his family.

Glass, Julia. (2002). Three Junes. New York: Pantheon Books. 353pp. This is a narrative about the McLeod family during three vital summers. It is about the bonds and stresses of family relationships and friendship. This would be a great text to help support Nightfather. It deals with the same issues of family struggle and the ties between people in a family structure.

Boas, Jacob. (1995). We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust. New York: Henry Holt. 196pp. by Jacob Boas. Five children from varied backgrounds, countries, religions, and outlooks describe how they coped with the suffering, which preceded their murder.

Lahirir, Jhumpa. (1999). Interpreters of Maladies: Stories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 198pp. Stories about families who are trying to navigate between a life and culture they know and one that they must adapt to in the United States.

Teaching Ideas

(1) "Recording Observations" Have one student (privately) write down everything that happens in class that day. Add in a few distractions to make it interesting. The next day, have the entire class write down what they remember about the previous day's class. Some students won't remember anything, even the distractions. Then have the student who wrote everything down the day before tell exactly what happened. This is a good exercise for practicing recalling, and observation. This is a good example to show kids the importance of observation in a text. This would be an excellent exercise to use one fourth of the way through any novel. It will demonstrate to the students the importance of observing details that may seem minor. It may also encourage them to reflect more on the novel they are reading.

[Summarized/adapted from "The Power of Observation" by Lynn P. Dieter from Ideas Plus, Book Nine. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1991.]

(2) "Book Report Posters" After students finish reading their books they will respond to the book by making a poster, rather than the typical book report. The poster will reflect on the major characters, themes, elements, and significant passages in the novel. The poster will still require the analysis that a book report does, however for something as serious as The Holocaust visual representation, and allowing students to present gives them time to reflect, and more deeply understand the horror than a book report would allow for. For example, the students could do a collage that captured the loneliness that people in the camps felt. This visual will not only help the student who creates it but it would also be more appealing to students of any age if presented. I am sure students would rather see a giant poster presented to them instead of a student reading a book report. This will also improve their analytical skills. It could be used as a stepping stone to teaching students how to thoroughly analyze a text.

[Summarized/adapted from "Responding to books through Posters" by Ann Grabowski from Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. August 2003.]

(3) "Passage Performance" This is an approach to teaching literature through performance. This doesn't mean a big theatrical production but just something simple to bring the words to life. Have the students group up and assign each group a passage to read out of their books. The next day they must come prepared with an acted out interpretation of their passage. This is great for visual aid and for practicing interpretation and analysis of a particular text. Students will be able to clear up any misunderstandings or questions about the text by consulting with each other and the teacher. This will force them to interpret the passage they choose. This would also be a great way to introduce the students to the importance of using imagery. They would see how much easier it is to act something out when they are given concrete details rather than a bunch of abstractions where everybody has a different idea of what the author is talking about.

[Summarized/adapted from "Making Literature Come Alive" by Donna Eustace from Ideas Plus, Book Twelve. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994.]

(Review written by Deana Provost and edited by Jennifer E. Moore)