The Other Half of Life

Raise your hand if you know what historical fiction is!  I do!  I do!  Historical fiction is usually based on real events with much of the storyline made up of fictional characters.  The history provides the backdrop for the fictional stories.  I am pretty sure you have all read historical fiction.  I read it every now and then when I'm in the mood to learn something new.  Most historical fiction guides me right to the Internet because I am so curious to see what really happened and what was made up.

Recently I finished The Other Half of Life by Kim Ablon Whitney.  She tells a story based on the voyage of the MS St. Louis, which transported over 900 Jewish refugees from Germany in 1939.  All the refugees sought entry into Cuba and would later travel to the United States.  The story was told from the perspective of a fifteen year old Jewish boy traveling to meet his brother in Cuba.  It is a coming of age story for him and many of the other children he associates with.   

The characters are all fiction and I'm sure their stories are too.  But I felt that the author did a great job opening my eyes to how these Jewish refugees might have felt.  It is a very quick read and is a clean book; of language and with little violence.  The author includes a note at the end of what was actually real from the story.  If you want to know the real history of the voyage and what was going on politically, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum has a great article about it.