The Red Ribbon was a unique look at the Holocaust. It focuses on the female prisoners of war who ended up at Birchenau-Auschwitz, and particularly on one girl, 14-year-old Ella, whose passion for sewing might mean all the difference between survival and death.

Ella is one of many “Stripies” who end up in Birchenau-Auschwitz (Birchwood), and her job as a prisoner there is to sew evening gowns and stylish dresses for the wives of the Nazi overseers, and the female SS guards. It is there she meets Rose, a girl with the ability to weave stories that can lift them out of their desperation, and give them courage, and hope for a future away from Birchwood.

This was a really poignant story about the Holocaust. The author, Lucy Adlington, writes with a delicate sensitivity to the subject matter. She does not omit the horror of Birchwood, but instead of focusing entirely on the violence, she concentrates instead on a friendship that offers a light in the darkness of despair. Overall, a really lovely, engaging story.

Review of an Advance Reading Copy

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Candlewick Press

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  9 religious exclamations; 4 mild obscenities; 1 derogatory name; 1 scatological word; 1 anatomical term.

Violence/Gore:  Many instances of violence and gore, including but not limited to: Mention of war; a girl is slapped; a girl is bullied by a boss; a girl is caught stealing; report of racism; characters threaten violence on others; characters hear gunfire; implication of people being led off to execution;  characters fight; a girl is dragged down from her bunk; friends argue and fight; characters are referred to as prisoners; report of someone getting kicked in the teeth by a guard; a girl is beaten by a guard; reports of a girl sacrificing her freedom to save her sister; a girl has bouts of coughing; a girl smashes her bowl into another girl’s face; mention of an uprising; a girl is shoved up against a wall by another girl; report of people being executed; report of someone dying; implication that a factory is about to be destroyed; implication of guards willing to kill prisoners rather than let them go free; characters are forced to flee their camp in horrific conditions and dressed in inadequate clothing; characters are left to die; a character falls and something snaps in her leg; a girl is shot and killed; a character is shot and left for dead; report of the conditions in a secret prison camp. 

Sex/Nudity:  Mention of nakedness; mention of men and women being forced to strip in the same room; mention of a girl being rounded in all the right places; mention of a woman slinging her arms around a new girlfriend every day of the week; a girl flips her skirt up a couple of times; a girl mentions having to pee herself; two girls link arms; a girl wants to lick a smudge of frosting off another girl’s lips; mention of bras; mention of sex; a girls hugs another girl and kisses her on the cheek; a girl wants to kiss another girl; girls see their first male prisoner; a character is said to like lewd songs; implication of a character being subjected to stripping; two girls are forced to sleep together; a girl holds another girl when she has nightmares; a girls gets underpants tossed on her face; mention of characters with babies; a girls holds another girl to warm her; a girl changes in the dark while a man is present; mention of a girl being naked under her prison dress; mention of a woman wearing pink panties to feel perkier; a girl strips naked in front of a barrack full of female prisoners to flaunt a handmade dress; a girl has two girlfriends draped on her arms; a girl sees a couple kissing; a girl remembers trying to kiss a man.

Mature Subject Matter:

Racial conflict, gender issues, religious conflict, death, war, physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, murder, prison violence, homosexuality (lesbian).

Alcohol / Drug Use:

A girl gets cigarettes to trade as money; a woman smokes a cigarette; a girl trades cigarettes for a headscarf; a girl earns cigarettes for doing jobs well; a character smokes a cigarette, and another character retrieves the leftover; mention of models laying off cigarettes and champagne; a girl trades cigarettes for clothing.