I loved this book. The story was great, but what really effected me was how Hegi wove the growth of discrimination in Nazi Germany into the story. She gives life to what really happened, one step at a time, in villages throughout the country and how the Nazi's managed to slowly take over the sensibilites of people who had never had a reason to hate their Jewish neighbors. It is a wonderful book. I highly recommend it.

I found it interesting that like 'Middlesex' this book follows the story of a family told over many decades and told by an unusual narrator, in this case a girl born a dwarf. The major differences are that while 'Middlesex' was terribly written I couldn't put this book down because Ursula Hegi writes interesting, complex characters that behave in believable ways and that the reader really cares about. The post the WWII years I found to be rather anti-climatic but that is a small gripe. Overall, a really well told, epic novel.

I loved this book. The main character was wonderful--and caught you up in that whole sorry era. She provided positive spin for the book.

Written in 1994, and set in the small (fictional) German town of Burgdorf from 1915 - 1951, this compassionate novel centers on Trudi Montag, a bright, observant, and articulate young woman who is also a zwerg, a dwarf. Born to a mentally ill mother who dies when Trudi is three, Trudi is at first bewildered by her small size, hanging from doorframes to "stretch" her arms and legs, praying that she will become more like other children, and believing that if she is truly good, God will help her.

Though a circus dwarf once comforts her by describing a fantasyland filled with gold and jewels, where everyone is a zwerg, Trudi finds that real life is not so magical. She is physically and emotionally assaulted, and, as a teenager, watches in horror as the Nazis come to power and assault and later "deport" her Jewish friends, who are now considered "different." Trudi's experience of her own "otherness" makes her a sympathetic friend and active supporter of the local Jews, and Hegi evokes great power by connecting the overwhelming Nazi horrors with the life of one small person in one small community. Through Trudi, Burgdorf's citizens come alive--those who befriend her and those who reject her, those who support her efforts to help the Jews and those who don't, and those who pity her and those who are inspired by her.

Throughout the novel, Hegi shows the power of storytelling to influence lives. Trudi works in her father's pay-library, and she is the community's best known storyteller, creating entertaining and lively stories that teach lessons, especially during the war years. But Trudi is no Pollyanna--she also uses her storytelling as a weapon against those who offend her, wreaking her own brand of personal vengeance. As the novel evolves, her childhood companions come and go. Some remain stalwart friends, and some change with the times. She matures emotionally, falls in love, and becomes part of the community's rebuilding after the war.

Hegi, who lived in Germany until she was eighteen, includes the small details of German life that bring the community and Trudi to life. Her depiction of war-time horrors is honest, and the stories of Trudi's Jewish friends are heart-breaking in their realism. Despite the sadness inherent in the times, however, Hegi is often lyrical in her celebrations of happiness, and Trudi's stories are often enchanting. Incorporating universal themes of love and hatred, life and death, strength and weakness, and acceptance and rejection, Hegi creates a novel that is as powerful on its second reading as it is on its first. n Mary Whipple