Like A River From Its Course by Kelli Stuart

Like A River From Its Course by Kelli Stuart tells the painful accounts of suffering and survival using the intertwined stories of the Holocaust victims. Although this book is considered to be historical Christian fiction, the accounts have an element of realism that makes these stories seem vivid and real.  The chapters jumps from character to character: although the lives and the families portrayed are unique, their paths intersect in the context of the Holocaust atrocities.  The vivid depictions are told from the unique point of view of a selection of featured lives: a young Jewish girl, distraught families torn apart, and even a Nazi soldier.  Stuart depicts the pain and anguish of parents as they embrace their children for the final time  moments before they are murdered.  The reader helplessly follows the account of a young girl as she watches her parents fall lifelessly into the ditch heaped with the bodies of the murdered victims.  With empathy, the author portrays the humiliation and the shame of a young girl forced to undress  before she is to murdered.  The grief and heroism of an ordinary father is depicted in a story that unfolds before the reader.  These accounts are so true to life, and told with such emotion and description that it is painful to read.  The author gets inside the minds and the thoughts of those lives she writes about as if she had first hand knowledge of the horrific events and experiences.  This is a story that needs to be told, and read, despite how painful it is.  Kelli Stuart is a versatile writer who can adapt to light hearted entertaining fiction  for young girls to intense works of historical fiction. Stuart proves herself as a gifted writer with an uncanny ability to get into the mind of those who no longer have a voice in order to tell their story.  Through Kelli Stuart, the lives of those who suffered cruelly under Hitler continues to live. Most readers are familiar with account of a young  Holocaust victim from the book "Number the Stars" from their literature classes. Stuart's book ranks on the same level and I believe this would be a good book for students to read in their own history or literature classes as well.   As a blogger for Litfuse publicity I received a copy of this book published by Kregel Publications for the purpose of this review.