Max

by Sarah Cohen-Scali, Penny Hueston (Translator)

Overview

Nazi Germany 1936. The Lebensborn program is going strong as German women are carefully selected by the Nazis and recruited to give birth to new representatives of the Aryan race. Inside one of these women is Max, a fetus waiting to be born and fulfill his destiny as the perfect Aryan.

Max is taken away from his birth mother as soon as he enters the world. He will be raised under the leadership and ideologies of the Nazi Party. As he grows up without a mom, without any affection or tenderness, according to Nazi educational precepts, he soon becomes the mascot of the program. But things don't go according to plan.

Originally published in French, Sarah Cohen-Scali's touching, illuminating, and heartbreaking book has been translated for an English-speaking audience.

A Neal Porter Book

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626720725
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480
File size:	675 KB
Age Range:	15 - 17 Years

About the Author

Sarah Cohen-Scali has written many novels and short stories for young readers. Her young adult novel Max, first published in France, has won several awards including the prestigious Prix Sorcières 2013.Max is her first book with Roaring Brook Press. Sarah lives in Paris with her family.
Sarah Cohen-Scali has written many novels and short stories for young readers. Her young adult novel Max, first published in France, has won several awards including the prestigious Prix Sorcières 2013. Max is her first book with Roaring Brook Press. Sarah lives in Paris with her family.

Editorial Reviews

12/19/2016
French author Cohen-Scali’s U.S. debut chronicles the rise and fall of the Third Reich through the eyes of a child. Konrad von Kebnersol (dubbed Max by his birth mother) is a product of Lebensborn, a top-secret Nazi eugenics program designed to propagate the Aryan race. Baptized by Hitler and raised by the Nazi Party, Max serves as bait to aid in the kidnapping of Polish children, then enrolls at the Kalish school to facilitate the abductees’ Germanization. There, Max meets Lukas, an older boy to whom Max bears a striking resemblance. The two become like brothers, so it’s a shock to Max when Lukas confides that he’s Jewish. Unfortunately, Cohen-Scali’s plot relies too heavily on coincidence, and Max’s narration lacks nuance (even as a fetus, he narrates like a mustache-twirling villain); although Lukas’s relationship with Max forms the book’s emotional core, Cohen-Scali waits 200 pages to introduce him. The novel endeavors to teach an important lesson about the indoctrination and exploitation of German youth, but excessive exposition and an awkward structure muddy the message. Ages 15–up. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Unforgettable, bizarre, and brilliant."—Booklist, starred review

"Readers will find Max's story reminiscent of M.T. Anderson's National Book Award-winning The Pox Party (2006)."—Kirkus Reviews

"A mature, provocative perspective on a harrowing history, the effects of which reverberate today."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

02/01/2017
Gr 9 Up—Chilling and thought provoking, Cohen-Scali's novel contemplates the legacy of Lebensborn, Hitler's mandated mating of "racially pure Aryan" men and women. With a touch of magical realism, Konrad begins his first-person narrative in utero with hateful and articulate speeches, reflecting a maturity well beyond his years. He is a Lebensborn child, and his internal monologue is that of an unapologetic, sociopathic white supremacist. Konrad witnesses the horrors of the Third Reich, such as the systemic raping of women, infanticide, and other atrocities, yet to him, they are simply part of life. As the model Aryan youth, he obediently follows orders and aids in the kidnapping of Polish children for "Germanization." Konrad's soul is thrown a lifeline when he enters Germanization school and befriends an older boy, Lukas, who soon reveals himself (only to Konrad) as Jewish. Lukas pities Konrad and sees the wounded child behind the hate speech he uses, and he tells Konrad that they must survive in order to bear witness. At the war's end, will he be Konrad, the indoctrinated Nazi, or Max, the child so lovingly named by his mother? To what will he bear witness? Readers are left with a horrifying question: Was Hitler's goal of raising young people to "terrify the rest of the world" attained? An author's note includes brief discussion of historical figures who appear in the book. VERDICT A mature, provocative perspective on a harrowing history, the effects of which reverberate today. Consider for high school and public library collections and for curriculum connections.—Laura Falli, McNeil High School, Austin, TX

School Library Journal

2017-01-17
The education of a young Nazi, from fetus to 9-year-old.One of the lesser-known Nazi atrocities, the Lebensborn program, aimed to increase the numbers of so-called Aryans; the program encouraged sexual contact between SS officers and unmarried (sufficiently blonde) white women while also Germanizing 200,000 kidnapped European children. Max is a fictional Lebensborn child, born in 1936 of unmarried parents. He begins his narrative in utero, determined to be born on April 20, the Führer's birthday. Platinum blond and with icy blue eyes and a perfectly Aryan dolicephalic head, he plans to become an ideal Nazi, full of Draufgängertum—a hotheaded lack of self-preservation. As a fetus and an infant, Max's point of view is that of an adult true believer, full of grotesque crudeness, endless sexual violence, and unremitting anti-Semitism. He's eager to serve the Reich, even as a toddler, and he gladly helps his eugenicist keepers identify appropriately Nordic-looking children to kidnap. Though he's intellectually convinced of Hitler's philosophies, Max's visceral discomfort with Nazi atrocities expresses itself through stomach troubles (described in scatological detail). A dysfunctional friendship with a blond, blue-eyed teenage Polish boy with a terrible secret only accelerates Max's poor digestion. After a slow start, readers will find Max's story reminiscent of M.T. Anderson's National Book Award-winning The Pox Party (2006). Horrific atrocities—and the ghastly realities of any war—seen through the eyes of a child with heartbreaking cognitive dissonance pack a wallop. (Historical fiction. 15-18)

Kirkus Reviews