Briar+Rose



Windling's Fairy Tale series has produced several excellent fantasy novels inspired by classic fairy tales. This is one of the series's most ambitious efforts, and only a writer as good as Yolen ( Sister Light, Sister Dark ) could bring it off. Yolen takes the story of Briar Rose (commonly known as Sleeping Beauty) and links it to the Holocaust--a far-from-obvious connection that she makes perfectly convincing. Rebecca Berlin, a young woman who has grown up hearing her grandmother Gemma tell an unusual and frightening version of the Sleeping Beauty legend, realizes when Gemma dies that the fairy tale offers one of the very few clues she has to her grandmother's past. To discover the facts behind Gemma's story, Rebecca travels to Poland, the setting for the book's most engrossing scenes and its most interesting, best-developed characters. By interpolating Gemma's vivid and imaginative story into the larger narrative, Yolen has created an engrossing novel. She handles a difficult subject with finesse in a book that should be required reading for anyone who is tempted to dismiss fantasy as a frivolous genre. From Publishers Weekly
 * Briar Rose**

Questions:

What is the polish word for castel? Answer: Schlos

Why did Rebecca go to poland? Answer: To figure out where her grandmother came from.

2. Why doesn't Gemma know her own history? She was gassed in a van and it damaged her memory.

3. What story does gemma always tell? - Sleeping Beauty (Also called Seepin Boot by the children)

4. Who kissed Gemma awake (alive) after she was gassed? Josef Potoki

5. What newspaper does Becca work for? The Advocate

6. Why does Briar Rose fit Gemma's life? She was in a castle for Jews, was gassed so she slept, and was 'kissed' awake (CPR). The story was also given to her as 'Sleeping Beauty in the Woods' because that is all she remembered from the gas chambers

7. Who did Ksiezniczka marry? Who was also in love with him? -The Avenger (Aron Madelstein), who gave her the marriage name of "Eve" and Josef Potoki was in love with him

8. How did Gemma wind up in America? -After the Avenger was killed, Joesf gave her his stepfather's ring (to help her coroborate her story) and helped her make a passport because she was pregnant. He gave her the name Eve Potoki to travel with