BRIAR ROSE
By Jane Yolen
Starscape, 1992
This has been a year of Holocaust books for me. From Jenna Blum’s THOSE WHO SAVE US to Jennifer Roy’s YELLOW STAR to Kathy Kacer’s HIDING EDITH (which I have not blogged about yet), it seems as if I am searching out these stories. If I am, it is a completely subconscious act. This weekend I read BRIAR ROSE, by Jane Yolen. When I picked it up I knew only that it was a retelling of Sleeping Beauty and that it was written by one of America’s most prolific writers of fiction for children. I didn’t know it was a Holocaust story.
In Yolen’s version of Sleeping Beauty, Briar Rose dies quietly of old age in America, leaving her granddaughter, Becca, with an urgent deathbed request: “Promise me you will find the castle. Promise me you will find the prince. Promise me you will find the maker of the spells.” Becca promises and subsequently finds herself drawn into her grandmother’s secretive (and scary) past. Becca’s journey to the castle and the maker of spells is replete with images that I will never shake. And I am profoundly grateful to the author and her colleagues for creating works of fiction that will keep all of humanity from forgetting the Holocaust.