{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260529T161654Z","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805067388?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"0805067388","authors":["Rosetta Loy","Gregory Conti"],"book_id":"9780805067385","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/first-words-0805067388","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780805067385.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","description":"In 1937, Rosetta Loy was a privileged five-year-old growing up among the well-to-do Catholic intelligentsia of Rome. But her childhood world of indulgent nannies and summers in the mountains was also the world of Mussolini's fascist regime and the increasing oppression of Italian Jews. Loy interweaves the two Italys of her early years, revealing the willful ignorance of her own family as one by one their Jewish neighbors disappeared. She indicts journalists and intellectuals for their blindness and passivity, and presents a searing and dispassionate record of the role of the Vatican and Catholic leadership in the devastation of Italian Jewry. Written in crystalline prose, First Words offers an uncommon perspective on the Holocaust -- that of one writer as she struggles to reconcile her memories of a happy childhood with her adult knowledge of one of the world's most horrifying tragedies.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780805067385","publication_date":"20010901","publisher":"Henry Holt and Co.","slug":"first-words","subtitle":"A Childhood in Fascist Italy","title":"First Words"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"YAN025090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Holocaust History for Teens","score":0.7371,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"YAF024070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Holocaust Stories for Teens","score":0.7296,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"JNF025090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Holocaust for Kids","score":0.7286,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"YAN025090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Holocaust History for Teens","score":0.7371,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"YAF024070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Holocaust Stories for Teens","score":0.7296,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"JNF025090","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Holocaust for Kids","score":0.7286,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"BIO006000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Lives in History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Holocaust History for Teens","score":0.7371,"slug":"holocaust-history-for-teens"},{"label":"Holocaust Stories for Teens","score":0.7296,"slug":"holocaust-stories-for-teens"},{"label":"Holocaust for Kids","score":0.7286,"slug":"holocaust-for-kids"}],"reader_fit":["Teen readers interested in Holocaust history","Readers seeking personal childhood perspectives during fascist Italy"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Antonio Iturbe","Lilit Thwaites","Lilit Žekulin Thwaites"],"book_id":"9781250258038","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781250258038.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","score":18.7116,"title":"The Librarian of Auschwitz","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781250258038"},{"authors":["Corrie Ten Boom","Elizabeth Sherrill","John Sherrill"],"book_id":"9780800794057","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780800794057.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","score":18.6945,"title":"The Hiding Place","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780800794057"},{"authors":["Dr. Edith Eva Eger","Edith Eger"],"book_id":"9781501130793","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781501130793.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","score":18.5917,"title":"The Choice","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781501130793"},{"authors":["Thomas Harding"],"book_id":"9781454962991","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781454962991.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","score":14.5164,"title":"The Einstein Vendetta","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781454962991"},{"authors":["Livia Bitton-Jackson"],"book_id":"9780689848988","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780689848988.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","score":14.5117,"title":"My Bridges of Hope","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780689848988"},{"authors":["Jennifer Roy"],"book_id":"9780761463108","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780761463108.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","score":14.4865,"title":"Yellow Star","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780761463108"},{"authors":["Liz Kessler"],"book_id":"9781534499652","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781534499652.jpg?v=20260529T161654Z%3A2026-05-29T17%3A17%3A38Z","score":14.4778,"title":"When the World Was Ours","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781534499652"},{"authors":["Joan M. 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