Powerful

The Mozart Question by Michael Morpurgo is a powerful children’s novel. It is perfect for ages ten years and over.

This is a tale simply but powerfully told. It introduces the reader to the power of music, memories and the holocaust. It is written in such a way as to inform but not to scare children into having nightmares.

Music transports us through time and space. We hear a piece of music and are immediately back somewhere in time. When that place is a concentration camp, we know why certain music is avoided as it causes great pain.

Friendships formed in the camps were strong. Survivors needed hope and luck to survive. The bonds they formed, no one can break because no one else will ever know the hell they went through daily nor the horrors that they saw. If we were not there, we can feel horror, but we will never be able to empathise – but other survivors can.

The Mozart Question is incredibly powerful in its simplicity. It is heart breaking and must be read in memory of the six million innocents who perished.

JULIA WILSON