Kristy R. Langstraat-Bolte

This book was called Hustle & Heart by Kailyn Lowry. This is the 2nd book of hers. Her first book was so much better and way more interesting, this one was super boring because it was more like a “self help” book, where she tries to dish out life lessons.

This book was called Three Sisters by Heather Morris. About 3 sisters who were sent to Auschwitz during the Holocaust. It was so sad what they went through and what happened to their families, however, it also ended up happy and how they overcame everything to go on a live a beautiful life!

This book was called Freedom: My Book of Firsts by Jaycee Dugard. I read her first book that talked all about her kidnapping and her life in captivity. This book was about her life after all of that, and what it was like to experience things she never got to, and that she thought she never would get to! Very uplifting book! Jaycee has such a positive attitude, and I’m happy for her! I know I wouldn’t have survived what she did, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be able to love life the way she does! Good for her!

This book was called Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank by Eva Schloss with Evelyn Julia Kent. I was quite confused by this book title as I know the story of Anne Frank VERY WELL, even having gone to tour her house in Amsterdam! But it was very interesting, and sad too. Turns out Eva’s mom lost her husband and son during the Holocaust just as Anne’s dad lost her, her sister and his wife! Then Evan’s mom and Otto ended up meeting in the camps, and they had actually lived near to each other in Amsterdam! Eva did know Anne when she was alive! Then they connected after the war and got married, so that is how Eva became Anne’s step sister (even though it was post-humously). Very interesting read for sure!

This book was Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz by Olga Lengyel. This true account was very good, and very interesting, and also very sad, and horrifying! I definitely learned new things about Auschwitz that I actually hadn’t read yet! Some were so shocking! Honestly, so mind-boggling……

Actually I read this book awhile ago but forgot to record it! It was called Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy by Seymour Reit. What’s great is this story was TRUE!!! Besides WW2 I also LOVE stories during the Civil War! This was about a girl who pretended to be a man so she could fight and help out during the civil war! She even became a spy and crossed over to the enemy territories many times without getting caught! This was unbelievably exciting and interesting and definitely not the normal stuff you read about the civil war!!

This book was called Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate. I had never heard of this true life story before about an orphanage who stole babies from the poor and unmarried and then sold them at extremely high prices to couples who couldn’t get approved in regular adoption agencies! Turns out there was a book called Before You Were Mine that is all about this too, that apparently we should have read first, but it’s on our list now, because I definitely thought this was interesting and would like to learn more!

This book was called Homer and the Holiday Miracle: A True Story by Gwen Cooper. I love anything and everything having to do with the little black blind kitty, Homer. So loved this book so much! Wish it had been longer!

This book was called Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage by Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn Brown. I actually did not enjoy this book, even though I am obsessed with the show Sister Wives. The reason is because, this book was written some years ago, and they make it seem like their lives/marriage are just perfect. But if you watch the show now, you know that it has all completely unraveled. So I feel like everything they wrote was a lie.

This book was called Amish Lily by Samantha Price. I love reading books about the Holocaust and the Amish! 2 very different subjects for sure! This was a story about a girl who wasn’t married, but her mother had married off all her other daughters, and just couldn’t understand why this daughter was being so difficult to marry off! Obviously the Amish have different beliefs in what a woman should do, and for an Amish girl it’s supposed to be grow up, get married, have babies, and take care of your kids and husband!

This book was called The Girl in the Striped Dress by Ellie Midwood. This was another different take on the Holocaust. It was about a Jewish girl who was an inmate in Auschwitz, and her captor, a German, fell in love with her and tried to take care of her so she wouldn’t be murdered. In the end it worked out and she escaped death and they actually got married! But then he was in court for his acts, and she was in court with him sticking up for him, even though he had a hand in murdering all of those Jewish people, her people!! Some say it was a condition where a person relies so much on their captor that they mistake it for real love. We will never know, but they both say they love each other very much and plan to live out their days together. Very strange to me…..

This book was called The Rainbow by Carly Schabowski. Yes it was another Holocaust book, but this time, it was almost from a different perspective and a side you don’t normally hear about! It was about a man in Poland, and how when his country got invaded by the Germans, what they did to the Poles, and how they ruined their lives too, and they weren’t Jewish! And yet this man suffered as well under the Nazi occupation. Normally we only think of what happened to the Jewish people, and this told a whole other side to a different kind of suffering! Very interesting and sad!

Apparently I forgot to write up a book I read before the Dachau book. It was called Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder. Part of this book also got turned into a movie, which I have not watched yet. This book was recommended to me by my dad. It was so good! So interesting, I also couldn’t put this one down! I didn’t know so much about this, I learned a new word workamper!! Plus I always wanted to be a campground host but after reading this, NO THANKS! Plus the environment in an Amazon warehouse makes me sick! I think every one should read this book!

This book was called The Watchmaker of Dachau by Carly Schbowski. It was so good! I feel like pretty much all the Holocaust books I read take place in Auschwitz, so it was very interesting to read one from Dachau. Plus it was a little different as these inmates had jobs outside of the camp at a Nazi’s house. I couldn’t put it down.