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Book Review, © Copyright 2003, Jim Loy
This picture book is a strange story about a little boy and a little girl who must get milk for their sick mother, but they have no money, and (they are surprise to learn) they cannot get milk without money. The slightly villainous Brundibar (a street singer who hates children) doesn't want them earning money that he could be earning. Does good triumph over slightly evil? This story is a Czech children's opera written in 1938 by Hans Krasa and Adolf Hoffmeister. When the Nazis imprisoned him at Terezin, Hoffmeister smuggled the play in, and it was performed by the children imprisoned there 55 times. The Nazis even filmed it once. Hoffmeister later died at Auschwitz.
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