Review of “To Bloom Like a Tulip” by Carolyn Summer Quinn

Score: 91+/100 (9.1+ out of 10)

Imagine hiding away from the Nazi Gestapo in an old movie theater! Could you imagine losing your rights and being faced with constant persecution and the threat of deportation, detainment, and death? What if you couldn't trust your neighbors or friends due to the looming threat of being found, outed, or betrayed?

To Bloom Like a Tulip is yet another evocative World War II-era novel by Carolyn Summer Quinn, a previous winner for her captivating novel Until the Stars Align. The two novels actually have a lot in common, both following the struggles of girls and their families during a time of intense antisemitism and persecution by the Nazis and their allies. Both might also be appropriate for YA readers, despite their dark subtext, due to their positive and inspiring portrayal of young women enduring these turbulent situations.

While Until the Stars Align focused heavily on the experiences of girls and women in Great Britain and Germany during World War II, To Bloom Like a Tulip focuses on the experiences of those living in the Netherlands (and, to a lesser extent, America) during that same time. It is interesting to note the shared struggles of these characters living in different places yet having a common humanity, linked by things like family, hope, and a desire to survive to see another day.

It seems to draw heavy inspiration from other examples of Holocaust literature like The Diary of Anne Frank, The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, all exploring the plight of Dutch children and the families who risked everything to save and protect them.

This book features Rika Spranger, a 13-year-old girl whose mother, Florentine, goes on a trip with two of her younger siblings to New York City in America in order to secure an estate. Rika stays behind with her father, Julius, and two older brothers, Kees and Henk, in Amsterdam. Rika, her father, and brothers plan to keep their family bookstore afloat. They expect to reunite with Florentine and the sisters in just six months time. However, the universe has other plans as a World War erupts.

The Netherlands is relentlessly bombed from the air by the German Luftwaffe, prompting Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana to flee. The Netherlands falls and surrenders to Nazi Germany in just five days (between May 10th and May 15, 1940). This leaves Rika's family fractured and separated. Being of Jewish heritage, they facing persecution by the Nazis and their collaborators, including the Nazi Gestapo, “Green Police,” and NSB (Dutch Nazi Party). Furthermore, they constantly face the possibility of being betrayed and turned in by members of their community, collaborators, and agents.

The author does a good job at showing the gradual degradation of the rights of Jews living in Nazi-occupied territory. It starts with the father having to register the bookstore as a “Jewish-owned business.” It then escalates into having to wear a yellow Star of David on one's shirt or jacket at all time in order to be identified. Then arrests, deportations, and outright killings begin.

The Spranger family is betrayed by a supposed document-forger, resulting in the father, Julius, being arrested and presumably sent to a Nazi concentration or labor camp. Realizing that their freedom and lives are truly on the line, Rika and her brothers are forced to hide and seek whatever shelter they can find. They receive it in the form of a theater owned and operated by a family friend, Bram Van Der Graaf.

Rika hides in the storeroom behind the projection area while her brothers hide in an old dressing room backstage. They live in constant fear of being found, leading to much of the tension of the book.

It should be noted that there's an interesting little subplot of how the children can hear and sometimes view the films being played, often hearing or viewing them multiple times but usually in fragments, leading them to debate and talk about the different parts they've seen. This is interesting in that it mirrors how the family itself is fragmented and fractured along with their opinions and thoughts about what's going on, who is responsible for the betrayal, and if they'll ever see their loved ones again. There's a real sense of generational, collective, and shared trauma.

Something else we admired about this book is how it really evokes a sense of adventure and exploration, sometimes reading like a travel book. Locations like the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Scheveningen, a beautiful Dutch Beach Town, are often mentioned.

Now, this book might be an example of something that's better in concept than in execution. There are times when it seems disjointed and overly complex. There are a lot of different characters, and the family dynamic (with the two sides of the family being separated) can be a mouthful and a mindful to describe. We think the reason there are so many different characters in here is to add to the mystery of who betrayed the family and who might be the traitor/double-agent in the community. You've got characters like Lisette Van Beek, Betje, Gustav the projectionist, Corina Temmink, Bram Van Der Graaf himself, and Charlotta Van Der Graaf who draw suspicion.

In other words, a lot of these characters serve as red-herrings. They also provide some humanizing conflict like when Rika develops a great amount of distrust and disdain for Lisette. Similarly, you can tell that Bram distrusts and dislikes Corina Temmink, the annoying and flirtatious jewelry shop owner.

In all honesty, the whodunnit section in the end seems to drag and seem less consequential when the war in Europe is over. A lot of the tension is already lost at that point.

There are also numerous grammatical errors and typos like:

“She had to wonder. Would the lost members of of her family ever be found?”

(The word “of” is repeated twice)

“Rika had never been so happy so see anything in her life”

(The word “so” should be “to”)

“She adored the three children who were secreted in the theater” should probably be “She adored the three children who were secured in the theater”

That's not to say that the writing doesn't shine from time to time. For example, alliteration is used in the phrase “crying mess of misery.”

There's a lot to like about this book.

Check it out on Amazon!