Witness (by Karen Hesse)

Written in free-verse poetry, divided into five acts, and told from the point of view of a large cast of characters, this is, at times, a confusing hodge-podge, and would make a better performance piece than it does a novel. Many (though not all) of the characters are listed in the front, with photos, names, ages, and occupations, and many readers will need to refer to this list frequently to keep them all straight.

Much of the style, including the rather flat-footed poetry, the lack of capital letters, and the cute but bizarre dialect invented for Esther, the little Jewish girl, seem arbitrary. Nevertheless, the story, revealed in bits and pieces through the poems, is compelling and holds the reader's interest. And somewhere, some avant-garde high school drama teacher is going to make a terrific little theater piece out of this.