In It’s My Whole Life, Susan Wider has written a book destined to sit beside The Diary of Anne Frank on any library bookshelf. The author takes her title from words that German Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon said about a series of paintings that she did while hiding from the Nazis in the south of France. Susan uses the primary resource of the painted memoir called Life? or Theatre? by Charlotte Salomon herself and adds extensive historical research to write a biography of the artist hiding her work from the regime that would have destroyed it and her. Susan’s own background in the art world comes through in the expertise used to describe the work and world of Charlotte as an artist.
The biography is a blend of art and story as the reader follows Charlotte through her mother’s death, a difficult relationship with her grandparents, a colorful stepmother, and into adulthood with inclusion of the pictures she painted and assorted photographs for illustrations. In an eerie parallel to the Franks, with whom her family was acquainted, Charlotte remained safe almost to the end. In October 1943, she and her husband were deported and separated. She was gassed to death in Auschwitz. Fortunately, for those who love her art and care about her story, she had entrusted her memoir and paintings to a friend.
The listing suggests that this book is for 13 to 18-year-old readers. I would suggest that a better label would be 13 and up since the book holds great interest for art lovers and for those who are engaged with biography and history.