If I Should Die Before I Wake

by Han Nolan

Overview

As part of a neo-Nazi gang in her town, Hilary has finally found a sense of belonging. But when she's critically injured in an accident, everything changes.

Somehow, in her mind, she has become Chana, a Jewish girl fighting for her own life in the ghettos and concentration camps of World War II.

Han Nolan offers powerful insight into one young woman's survival through the Holocaust and another's journey out of hatred and self-loathing.

Reader's guide and an interview with the author included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547540634
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/01/2003
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
File size:	251 KB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

HAN NOLAN is the author of several books, including Dancing on the Edge which won the National Book Award and Send Me Down a Miracle, a National Book Award finalist. She lives with her husband on the East Coast.

Reading Group Guide

1. Why is Hilary angry and full of hate? What are her reasons for turning her anger on her mother and on Jews?

2. Why does Hilary feel like she fits in with the Great Warriors?

3. Bubbe tells Chana that she must remember everything. Why is this important?

4. How can everyone share the same past and the same future yet see it differently? How does her experience with Chana change the way Hilary sees things?

5. Why did caring for Matel in Auschwitz save Chana? How might taking action, as Chana or Jakub or Bubbe did, affect one's chances of survival? What are the risks of taking action?

6. Hilary wonders if she's wicked. How would you answer her?

Copyright (c) 2003. Published in the U.S. by Harcourt, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

High-school student Hilary Burke, whose rebellion against her fundamentalist Christian mother takes the form of hanging out with local neo-Nazis, lies unconscious in an intensive-care ward after a motorcycle accident. The other patient in the unit is an aged Holocaust survivor, Chana Bergman. Before returning to consciousness, Hilary slips into Chana's memory and travels back in time to the Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz. Chana's chapters dominate the text until the elderly woman dies and Hilary returns to life, no longer anti-Semitic. This first novel has great strengths and weaknesses. The time travel is contrived, the characterization of Hilary's mother is shallow and unbelievable, a hospital fire set by neo-Nazis is an unnecessary plot element, and the preachy message about the "new" Hilary changing the world is tabloid psychodrama. Chana's story, however, is brilliantly rendered. Without sensationalizing or blurring, Nolan evokes the physical and emotional crowding of shared living space, the desperate struggle for food each day, and the compromises required for survival. Despite the contrived machinery through which it's introduced, Chana's story carries memorable emotional impact.

Mary Harris Veeder

"Bold . . . deeply felt and often compelling."—Kirkus Reviews

"Brilliantly rendered."—Booklist

"Page-turning."—VOYA
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From the Publisher