Hasen

Two young boys live by their wits in what seems to be an idyllic, almost paradisiacal forest until the reader learns that their domain abuts a Nazi concentration camp.This extraordinary and terrifying novel is a study of innocence and cruelty, of the sweet and the wild (the hare, hasen), and the bestial and the trapped. It is the story of two friends boys, really their clever and courageous attempt to rescue a brother from certain death, and their valiant efforts to stem the horror that winds tighter than a watch spring until the final, and savage, sacrifice. As simply and beguilingly told as a fairy tale, this is a novel that evokes with power and economy the essence, the beauty, of loyalties tested to the utmost.