Review of the "Once" by Morris Gleitzman

I have finished reading the novel, Once, which is a story about Felix (my favorite character), a Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. I think that this book is very interesting considering that it is a grim story of the events of the Holocaust which Gleitzman has artfully turned into one that is full of innocence. Some of the best written parts of the book are how Felix innocently interprets the events that are taking place around him both before and after he runs away from the Catholic orphanage where his parents had placed him for his own protection. When he gets a whole carrot in his soup, he sees it as an omen that his parents are on their way to get him. When he witnesses the Nazi burning books, he believes them to be librarians from another country who have come to clean out the old books from the library of the orphanage. The innocence that Felix once had is slowly stripped away as the novel progresses as he sees the horrors which even his innocent interpretations cannot explain. My favorite character in this novel as stated above is Felix because one is able to see his development throughout the novel as his innocence is taken away and realizes the realities of life. I think that this book would be much better if it were a bit more grim just to show the realities of what exactly happened during the Jewish Holocaust. Despite this minor detail, I still found the novel to be a good read and I would recommend it to anyone who would like to know more about what happened in Nazi-occupied Poland.