Name: Now
ISBN: 9780141329987

Morris Gleitzman

Now is the third shocking, funny and heartbreaking book in Morris Gleitzman's Second World War series.Sometimes facing the past is the bravest act of all...ONCE I didn't know about my grandfather Felix's scary childhood.THENI found out what the Nazis did to his best friend Zelda.NOWI understand why Felix does the things he does.At least he's got me. My name is Zelda too. This is our story.Now is the third in a series of children's novels about Felix, a Jewish orphan caught in the middle of the Holocaust, from Australian author Morris Gleitzman - author of Bumface and Two Weeks with the Queen. The other books in the series, Once, Then and After are also available from Puffin.

Lysh (She/Her)

“Now” continues the adventures and trials of Felix. ONCE he was a Jewish boy living in an orphanage in Nazi occupied Poland. THEN he ran in fear of his life with his friend Zelda after escaping from a train headed to the death camps. NOW he is a grandfather living in Australia and helping his young granddaughter to stand up for herself and be brave. 

This is a beautiful ending to a beautiful trilogy (I’m going to call it that even though there are three more books because, chronologically, this installment fits in last and the remaining books seem to have been added as afterthoughts to fill in the gap between “Then” and “Now”. Rant over. Please proceed) It took me longer to get into this one (even though I still finished it within a 24 hour time frame) because our main POV changed from Felix to his granddaughter and I was not ready for a shift in voice. I quickly fell in love with our new protagonist though and saw through her eyes the pain that Felix was still experiencing in the form of his PTSD. I think this was a good touch from the author given that the first two books were also from the POV of a child. It would have felt too “old” if Felix had continued to tell his own story and hence less accessible to Gleitzman’s young audience. 

Overall this wasn’t the 5 star read that I have come to expect from this series, and that may have been due to a lack in historical fiction elements given the setting was in the “Now”. 

Recommended to ages 14+ interested in WW2
Format: eBook
Rating: 4/5 Stars 
2018: 27/40 books

Rahmat Junaid

nina 

Set in the current day, this is the final book in the series that began with Once, continued with Then and is... Now. Felix is a grandfather. He has achieved much in his life and is widely admired. He has mostly buried the painful memories of his childhood, but they resurface when his granddaughter Zelda comes to stay with him. Together they face a cataclysmic event armed only with their with gusto and love – an event that helps them achieve salvation from the past, but also brings the possibility of destruction. Longlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction prize 2010.