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**__  Briar Rose­­­ __**** By Jane Yolen

**

For as long as Becca can remember, her grandmother Gemma has been telling to her the haunting tale of Briar Rose. As a child Becca loved it, as an adult she could recite every word of it. When her grandmother falls ill, she makes a claim that astonishes Becca: "I am Briar Rose" (Yolen 17). Despite her family's persistent advice to ignore the old woman's words, Becca can't get Gemma's statement out of her mind. She makes a promise to her dying grandmother that she will uncover the truth of the story, and Becca is determined to keep that promise. It pulls her into a journey; a journey full of inconceivable cruelty and unthinkable brutality; a journey full of bravery and of courage—a journey that is more complex than Becca could have possibly imagined.
 * Synopsis of //Briar Rose//   **



//Briar Rose// was truly an outstanding book. Jane Yolen took an untold part of the Holocaust and wove into it a fictional tale of love, secrets and discovery. She created a chilling present-day narrative while skillfully incorporating into it an important part of history.  Readers who enjoy a phenominal novel should definitely read this book. It has well developed characters who are displayed throughout Yolen's writing. The relationships between the characters are strongly shown as well, which always makes for a better novel. For example, whenever Becca, the main character, is around Stan, she does things like "blush unaccountably" and giggle (Yolen 66). She always feels a little bit "left-footed" around him, even though, as Becca put it, "It wasn't as though he were actually devastatingly attractive" (Yolen 51).
 *  An Outstanding Novel **

The plot of //Briar Rose// is very creative and extremely well organized. It took an immense amount of research and thinking on Yolen's part to come up with the storyline; the author later described //Briar Rose// as "one of the hardest books she'd ever written" (Yolen xiv). Emotion plays into the novel as well; the conclusion of //Briar Rose// leaves readers with the hollow and haunting but also warm and promising feeling that can only come from a mysterious, sensational, and exceptionally well-written book. Surprising yet acceptable, haunting but heartwarming, the novel of //Briar Rose// has most certainly earned its place on the "Outstanding Books for the College Bound" list. 

 Told from the third person viewpoint, //Briar Rose// is arranged in a unique way. The main story is interrupted throughout the novel by flashbacks to the main character's past, which makes the book very interesting. It incorporates a second story into the primary one, telling it in bits and pieces until everything can finally be put together at the end. This way of writing does not make the narrative perplexing to the reader, but rather gives it more individuality.  One of the characters in the novel tells a lengthy story, which occupies many of the book’s chapters. Because it is a critical part of the novel, and because of its length, the author wrote this story as, essentially, a book within the book. When finished, however, the story helped the characters and the readers to piece together the unfolding mystery in //Briar Rose//. This way of writing also worked for Yolen; again, it made //Briar Rose// more interesting and distinctive.  The only part of //Briar Rose// that is at all hard to understand is when the Polish people are making jokes about their nationality. One of the characters stated, "...it is because we are Polish. If one does not play games, then there is too much to weep about" (Yolen 231). Readers who are not knowledgeable of Polish ways may not know whether or not the characters are serious. 
 *  Criticizing //Briar Rose// **

//Briar Rose// is part of the Fairy Tale Series edited by Terri Windling. The books in this series, written by various authors, are retellings of different fairy tales. However, //Briar Rose// is no fantasy novel. It is of the historical fiction genre; facts make up the entire exposition aside from the characters and their stories. Jane Yolen reminds the readers of this in the Author's Note, saying that, while the happenings in Chelmno described in the novel were true, "This is a book of fiction. All the characters are made up" (Yolen 241).
 *  Recommendations… **

Those who are fond of learning about history may find this novel appealing. Fairy tale lovers may also take interest in this exceptional book. In fact, someone without notable interest in either of these subjects could be fond of this narrative as well, because, although the book may not be entirely history, fairy tale, or realistic fiction, //Briar Rose// is an impeccable mix of the three and could therefore be of interest to anyone. The other books in the Fairy Tale series, found at http://windling.typepad.com/editing/adult-fairytales.html,   would be an excellent choice for anyone who enjoyed reading //Briar Rose//.

 Jane Yole  n was born on February 11, 1949 in New York City. Her writing career began early on; even as an elementary school child she was writing stories. While in Jr. High, Jane and her brother started an apartment newspaper. They interviewed their neighbors and wrote articles, and then proceeded to sell the copies back to the very neighbors with whom they had held the interviews. When she finished High School, Jane graduated seventh in her class and went to her second choice college, Smith. There she wrote for the school newspaper, wrote all of the lyrics for the class musical, and won many awards for her poetry.
 * About the Author:**

After finishing college, Jane moved to New York and became an editor, writing on the weekends and whenever else she could find free time. Although she had originally planned being a journalist/nonfiction writer and poet, Jane's first book was to be a children's book, //Pirates in Petticoats//, released in 1971. Eleven years later, Jane got married to David Stemple, and they had three children. Jane now lives in Western Massachusetts next door to her daughter and two of her six grandchildren. Since //Pirates in Petticoats//, Jane has written over 280 books of various different genres, and plans to continue to do so in her years yet to come. (For more information, visit http://www.janeyolen.com/janebio.html )


 * Index:

**<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #ff0066; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'">Yolen, Jane. __Briar Rose__. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1992. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #ff0066; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #ff0066; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'">Information about the author from: <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: #ff0066; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'">Yolen, Jane. “A Short Biography.” 2008. 7 October, 2008. http://www.janeyolen.com/janebio.html.

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