Other editions of book Marika

As a young girl in Budapest in the 1930s, Marika dreams of growing up to be a scientist or maybe an explorer. An older brother who never tells her anything, a beloved rag doll, an embarrassing mother, school, friends--Marika's life revolves around ordinary things until her father decides to build a wall in their home, creating separate living quarters for himself. Why can't they live together, like her friend Zsofi's family?Then, when Marika is fifteen, the Germans occupy Budapest, and war surrounds her. Her ordinary life disintegrates as her friends and family separate. Forced into hiding, Marika begins to understand the fragility and strength of the bonds among family and friends, and gradually she comes to terms with her shattered world.

Scholastic Trade Paperback, copyright 2004 with 154 pgs. "I would be an explorer, a scientist, a writer. Did Andras really think that a man named Hitler in Germany would stop me?" In 1944, the Nazie invade Hungary, and Marika's family is forced into hiding. As her world shatters around her, the concerns of Marika's childhood suddenly seem very small and far away. Unspeakable acts of anti-Semitism are everywhere. Now Marika will need to call upon her sharp intelligence and an unexpected core of strength and courage-to keep herself and her family alive.

In this compelling first novel, a Hungarian girl comes to terms with being a Jew during World War II. Marika covers roughly ten years in the life of a Hungarian girl named Marika, the only daughter of a wealthy stockbroker and his wife. Marika is six years old when WWII erupts, and for her the war is far away. At first it intrudes on her life only on occasion, such as when her uncle advises her to give her rag doll Maxi "less Jewish" name, or when her father urges her to attend Catholic mass with her classmates rather than to study "Israelite religion" with her friend Zsofi. But aside from news of war and of the danger faced by Jewish friends and relatives in other countries, life around Marika is quiet and ordinary. Her biggest concern is her parents' separation and the wall that has been built in their house to create a separate apartment for her father. As the war comes closer to Budapest, however, Marika finds that there is no escape from the fact that, by Hitler's definition, she and her family are Jews.