The Island on Bird Street is a semi-autographical work of Middle Grade Literature by Holocaust survivor Uri Orlev, who originally published the book in 1981 in Israel.
Alex is a young Polish Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto who is separated from his family during the deportations and remains in hiding in the abandoned and war-ravaged ghetto, struggling to survive while clinging to the hope his father will return one day. He engages in urban Robinsonade methods of survival and eluding detection from German soldiers and looters while also eventually encountering other fugitives and Resistance fighters. The story is an episodic one and a partially escapist Lighter and Softer version of the real Orlev's story, as he was unable to remain in hiding until the end of the war like Alex and was caught and sent to a concentration camp, which he fortunately survived, and was only reunited with his father nine years after the war.
The book has been translated into several languages, being one of several Orlev works which saw him awarded the Hans Christian Anderson Award for children's literature, and was adapted into a movie in 1997, with the Danish-produced film starring a young Patrick Bergin and also featuring Jack Warden.
Tropes in the Book and Movie:
- Adaptational Wimp: Boruch stabbing a guard who tries to chase Alex is cut from the film.
- Always Save the Girl: In the book, but not the film, Alex briefly attacks the Nazis as they go after away a family in hiding and saves a girl named Martha.
- Ascended Extra: Boruch (who goes from an Honorary Uncle to an actual one who lives with Alex and his father) and the Grynn family appear repeatedly for about the first quarter of the movie after having far fewer appearances in the book.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: After drinking from a bottle of alcohol he found, Alex spits it out and mutters an excuse that it's an inferior brand.
- Children Forced to Kill: When Alex sees a German soldier about to kill two Resistance fighters he found in the ghetto, he saves one of them by shooting the soldier.
- Disaster Scavengers: Many of the Poles outside the abandoned ghetto are just as destitute as its residents and break into the ghetto looking to steal abandoned food or valuables. Some are creeps or killers, while others are with La Résistance (such as the humorous Henryk, who Alex takes care of after a German soldier wounds him, and a scarred man who gives Alex survival advice after an encounter).
- Loyal Animal Companion: Alex's only constant companion as he travels through the ghetto is his pet mouse, Snow, who he likes to talk to when he's lonely or contemplative.
- Puppy Love: The preteen Alex meets a girl named Stasya (in the book, she is another Jew in hiding) during his excursions to the park, and they become close but not intimate.
- "Rear Window" Homage: Unable to leave the ghetto ruins, Alex spies on people in nearby parks, streets, and buildings and learns that one doctor is with La Résistance, technically a crime in occupied Poland, but one that makes Alex investigate only to the point where he wants to approach the man for help.
- Robinsonade: Alex, whose favorite book is Robinson Crusoe, undergoes an urban version of this when he remains in hiding in the bombed-out and deserted ghetto and makes rope ladders to get around and hide from the Nazi soldiers while struggling to feed and care for himself alone.
- Scenery Gorn: Most of the story is spent traversing the dirty and bombed-out ghetto in great detail.
- With Friends Like These...: One of Alex's neighbors, the Gryns, children likes to steal his mouse and threaten to hurt it and his parents show us selfish attitude when Alex asked for their help during the ghetto liquidation, although the family's other children do seem to genuinely get along with Alex and Snow.