From Publishers Weekly
PW's starred review called this memoir, of a 13-year-old Hungarian Jewish girl's incarceration in Auschwitz, "an exceptional story, exceptionally well told." Ages 12-up. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up. In 1944, Elli Friedmann, a 13-year-old Hungarian Jew, is deported with her family to Auschwitz. Her blonde braids and tall stature save her from instant death in the crematorium. During the following year, Elli and her mother survive terrible suffering and injustice through sheer courage, perseverance, and ingenuity. The teen matures from a naive child concerned with boys and bicycles to a toughened, traumatized?yet still hopeful?young woman. This is a chilling account of concentration camps and humankind's capacity for inhumanity. The horrors are not prettified or watered down and are appropriately nightmarish. Unfortunately, the book has two flaws. First, Bitton-Jackson tells her story in the present tense, or tries to; but the voice is inconsistent, and the results are awkward and, at times, confusing. Second, not all the segments are complete. For instance, early in Auschwitz, Elli sees blood running down the legs of a menstruating woman and wonders how she'll feel when her period arrives; but nothing else is mentioned on the subject. The author's adult book, Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust (Times, 1980; o.p.)?from which this book is adapted?provides the answers to this and other questions. Despite these drawbacks, I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a gripping story that teaches important lessons. It will be a valuable addition to any Holocaust collection.?Ann W. Moore, Schenectady County Public Library, NYCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 8^-12. In a graphic present-tense narrative, this Holocaust memoir describes what happens to a Jewish girl who is 13 when the Nazis invade Hungary in 1944. She tells of a year of roundups, transports, selections, camps, torture, forced labor, and shootings, then of liberation and the return of a few. For those who have read Leitner's stark The Big Lie (1992), this is a much more detailed account, with the same authority of a personal witness. Horrifying as her experience is, she doesn't dwell on the atrocities. There is hope here. Unlike many adult survivor stories, this does not show the victims losing their humanity. The teenager and her mother help each other survive; they save each other from the gas chambers. Even in the slaughter of the cattle trucks strafed by machine-gun fire, "words of comfort emerge from every corner." The occasional overwriting about "drowning in a morass of pain and helplessness" is unfortunate. The facts need no rhetoric. On every page they express her intimate experience. After the war, the teenager finds her brother, hears how her father died. She wonders whether she dare enjoy the luxury of being a girl, of "having hair." A final brief chronology of the Holocaust adds to the value of this title for curriculum use with older readers. Hazel Rochman

Midwest Book Review
Ages 12 and up will find this an intense autobiographical account of a 13-year-old's sudden introduction to war. When Nazis invaded her Hungarian home, Elli found herself shipped to a concentration camp, where she was selected for work. As one of the few teenage camp inmates, Elli recounts a chilling story of survival.

Card catalog description
The author describes her experiences during World War II when she and her family were sent to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

ANNOTATION

The author describes her experiences during World War II when she and her family were sent to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A graphic narrative describes what happens to a 13-year-old Jewish girl when the Nazis invade Hungary in 1944. Includes a brief chronology of the Holocaust.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Born in a small farming town in Hungary, Bitton-Jackson was 13 when Nazis forced her and her family into a Jewish ghetto and then sent them to Auschwitz. After a yearful of innumerable harrowing experiences, she was liberated. While the facts alone command attention, Bitton-Jackson's supple and measured writing would compel the reader even if applied to a less momentous subject. She brings an artist's recall to childhood experiences, conveying them so as to stir fresh empathy in the target audience, even those well-versed in Holocaust literature. She relates, for example, how the yellow star made her feel marked and humiliated, reluctant to attend her school's graduation; how existence in the ghetto, paradoxically, made her happy to be Jewish for the first time in her life; how an aunt terrified the family by destroying their most valuable belongings before deportation, so that the Germans could not profit by them. Her descriptions of Auschwitz and labor camps are brutal, frank and terrifying, all the more so because she keeps her observations personal and immediate, avoiding the sweeping rhetoric that has, understandably, become a staple of much Holocaust testimony. Of particular interest is her relationship with her mother, who survived with her (in part because of the author's determination and bravery after an accident left her mother temporarily paralyzed). An exceptional story, exceptionally well told. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

PW's starred review called this memoir, of a 13-year-old Hungarian Jewish girl's incarceration in Auschwitz, "an exceptional story, exceptionally well told." Ages 12-up. (Mar.)

Children's Literature - Mary Sue Preissner

Written in the first person, young readers will experience the joys, terrors, hope and desperation of the author's personal recollections of living in Hungary in 1943, her survival in the concentration camps, and her eventual immigration to the United States. The book includes a family chronology of events, significant dates and eventsrelating to the Holocaust, and a glossary.

VOYA - Victoria Yablonsky

Elli Friedmann's recollections of the horror of the Holocaust begin in her native Hungary in 1944 when she and her family are taken from their home and sent on a journey that would eventually lead to Auschwitz. Her memoir covers 1944 to 1945, her thirteenth and fourteenth years, and relates in excruciating detail the living nightmare she endured in cattle cars on endless train rides and in several Nazi concentration camps. Her stories of humiliation, degradation, and despair vividly express her feelings about her loss of freedom and self. But the wonder of her story is her ability to overcome her nightmare through her spirit and determination never to give up. She survives her ordeal while helping her mother and brother, and they all return to their home at the end of the war and eventually emigrate to America. This is a young adult version of the author's earlier adult book, Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust (Times Books, 1980). It follows the first book closely, but it omits or simplifies some events and slightly changes language in some places. This would be a valuable purchase for junior high or YA collections, but is unnecessary for high schools that own Elli. Glossary. Chronology. VOYA Codes: 5Q 3P J S (Hard to imagine it being any better written, Will appeal with pushing, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

KLIATT