-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Young Adult Edition of The Choice
by Dr. Edith Eva Eger
In this young adult edition of the bestselling, award-winning memoir The Choice, Holocaust survivor and renowned psychologist Dr. Edith Eger shares her harrowing experiences and gives readers the gift of hope and strength.
Edie is a talented dancer and a skilled gymnast with hopes of making the Olympic team. Between her rigorous training and her struggle to find her place in a family where she's the daughter "with brains but no looks," Edie's too busy to dwell on the state of the world. But life in Hungary in 1943 is dangerous for a Jewish girl.
Just as Edie falls in love for the first time, Europe collapses into war, and Edie's family is forced onto a train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp. Even in those darkest of moments, Edie's beloved, Eric, kindles hope. "I'll never forget your eyes," he tells her through the slats of the cattle car. Auschwitz is horrifying beyond belief, yet through starvation and unthinkable terrors, dreams of Eric sustain Edie. Against all odds, Edie and her sister Magda survive, thanks to their sisterhood and sheer grit.
Edie returns home filled with grief and guilt. Survival feels more like a burden than a gift—until Edie recognizes that she has a choice. She can't change the past, but she can choose how to live and even to love again.
"Eger's present-tense stream-of-consciousness narrative allows readers to experience the brutality of the Nazis but also the cooperation and encouragement among the inmates and the events that gave her postwar life meaning. A luminous memoir of human resilience." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Eger pares down The Choice, her National Jewish Book Award–winner and New York Times bestselling combination Holocaust memoir and self-help book, into a sensitive, thought-provoking account for teens... . Impactful for all readers, especially history enthusiasts or fellow trauma survivors." —Booklist (starred review)
"Eger beautifully portrays liberation and returning to the world of the living. Dancing is the thread that holds her life together ... Eger's reflections of suffering and seeds of hope are directly and beautifully wrought; the author's note reaches out to readers who are coping with pain and suffering in this modern age... . this is an important personal telling of Holocaust suffering and survival." —School Library Journal
This information about The Ballerina of Auschwitz was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edith Eger is an eminent psychologist and one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors old enough to remember life in the camps. A colleague of Viktor Frankl, Dr. Edith Eger has worked with veterans, military personnel, and victims of physical and mental trauma. She lives in La Jolla, California, and is the author of the bestselling and award-winning books The Choice and The Gift. Edie and her daughter, Marianne Engle—a renowned psychologist and food writer who helped develop the recipes in The Gift—encourage you to try the delicious dishes in the book and share your thoughts at [email protected].
If you liked The Ballerina of Auschwitz, try these:
by Quiara Alegría. Hudes
Published 2025
The story of a runaway mother's ten days of freedom—and the pain, desire, longing, and wonder we find on the messy road to enlightenment—from Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
by Victoria E.. Schwab
Published 2023
Winner of the 2020 BookBrowse Fiction Award
In the vein of The Time Traveler's Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab's genre-defying tour de force.
by Alice Hoffman
Published 2020
In 1941, during humanity's darkest hour, three unforgettable young women must act with courage and love to survive, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites Alice Hoffman.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
