Julie Wendland, Readers' Services Coordinator, recently enjoyed By Chance Alone by Max Eisen, a moving memoir that made it on to the Canada Reads 2019 shortlist. Here is her review:

Survival and resilience are themes that I am always drawn to so when Canada Reads 2019 named By Chance Alone by Max Eisen to their shortlist I knew it was one that I had to read. Eisen begins this memoir growing up in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia surrounded by close family, which soon leads way to his town being annexed to Hungary during the war and the hardships they faced. In 1944, his entire family was rounded up in a raid and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He is immediately separated from his mother and his younger siblings and sent with his father and uncle to begin work as a slave labourer. Eventually, though his father and uncle are sent to the gas chambers, his father was able to impart one last message to him, telling him to educate people on the horrors. Eisen survived the concentration camp and eventually immigrated to Canada and has become a renowned speaker and now author to tell all ages of his plight. I am sure his father would be proud.

Reserve By Chance Alone by Max Eisen by clicking here