Sweet revenge is the mission and Avrom intends on achieving it through Freddie's body and voice as he takes over the puppet act in order to publicly search for his murderer in each new city they play. Avrom, not yet 13, was brutally murdered by a Nazi bounty hunter. Freddie becomes possessed by a dybbuk (the Jewish ghost of a boy, Avrom Amos, with an unfinished mission). In post-WWII Europe, The Great Freddie, an American gentile who is a mediocre ventriloquist, performs in clubs around the continent. Avron’s wisecracking will counterbalance matter-of-fact accounts of Nazi cruelty for young readers, but it’s likely to be older ones who will best appreciate the novel’s eloquent “inner voice” of conscience, which takes on a definite symbolic cast, and the way in which Freddie’s public and private identities shift as the story progresses.Kirkus Review starred (August 1, 2007)Amidst the plethora of mostly depressing Holocaust children's and YA literature, Fleischman introduces an ingenious approach to the topic and issues.
The narrative voice here sounds adult, but the talented Fleischman is still both entertaining and thoughtful. Ultimately, the search takes the two to America, where in a satisfying (if credulity-straining) climax, they find their quarry standing trial for a new crime, and Avron exacts a triumphant revenge for the old ones. Avron then cajoles his host into keeping kosher, and even undergoing an ersatz (or is it?) bar mitzvah. Countering Freddie’s understandable reluctance with both gags and gut-wrenching war stories, Avron moves in, and Freddie begins to display stunning vocal tricks to ever-larger audiences. Freddie’s career isn’t exactly taking off as he wanders postwar Europe-until he opens a closet and discovers smart-mouthed Avron, who offers to put a better line of patter into Freddie’s mouth in exchange for help finding a certain murderous SS officer.
Motivated, as he explains in his afterword, to create a personal remembrance of the 1.5 million Jewish children killed in the Holocaust, Fleischman pairs Freddie, a struggling, ex-GI ventriloquist, with Avron, the ghost of one such victim, in a short, provocative tale that leavens the tears with laughter.
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