62 pages • 2 hours read
Gordon KormanLinked
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Gordon Korman
Gordon Korman is a Canadian American author. He grew up in Toronto and attended university in New York, where he now lives with his family. Writing steadily for four decades, he is the author of more than a hundred books for middle-grade and young adult readers, including series, stand-alone novels, historical fiction, and fantasy fiction. He is also a co-author of the 39 Clues series. Several of his books have been adapted for the screen. Korman’s books have sold more than 35 million copies around the world and been translated into 32 languages. Korman's Restart and The Unteachables are New York Times #1 Best Sellers, and his other novels, including Slacker, Level 13, Unplugged, Whatshisface, and Linked.
Korman’s writing career began when he was in grade seven and his creative writing teacher gave students the opportunity to work on anything they wanted for the second half of the year. Korman produced This Can’t be Happening at Macdonald Hall, which was ultimately published by Scholastic Press in 1978 when Korman was in grade nine. Republished in 2003 with updated language and references, the book’s title was shortened to This Can’t be Happening!
Korman has won numerous awards for his writing in the United States and Canada, including the Air Canada Award for promising authors when he was 17 years old as well as several American Library Association and Pacific Northwest Library Association awards, among others. In addition to writing, Korman has spoken about his books at libraries, at bookstores, and in school visits in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.
Cultural Context: Knowledge of the Holocaust in Modern Schools
Linked was published in 2021, one year after a study was released showing that approximately 67% of adults aged 18 through 39 in the United States are unaware that the Holocaust was responsible for the deaths of six million Jews (Sherwood, Harriet. “Nearly Two-Thirds of US Young Adults Unaware 6m Jews Killed in the Holocaust.” The Guardian, 16 Sept. 2020). Among this number, 10% believed that the Jews had caused the Holocaust. Almost a quarter of respondents believed that the Holocaust was either a myth or an exaggeration, and 12% either had not heard of or did not think they had heard of the Holocaust. At the same time, more than 50% replied that they had seen Nazi symbols either online or in person, and just under 50% said that they had seen content denying or distorting the Holocaust. Just over half of respondents were able to name a World War II concentration camp or ghetto.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany commissioned the study, which raised concerning questions about schoolchildren’s education about the Holocaust in the United States. The president of the conference, Gideon Taylor, described the survey as a “wake-up call” that demonstrated the importance of hearing survivors’ stories while they are still able to share them.
Linked tackles the concerns raised by the study in a number of ways. A Nazi symbol is created by a student who does not understand its meaning, and a second student creates upwards of 30 of this same symbol, believing that it is not a “big deal.” This falls in line with the widespread ignorance surrounding the Holocaust and antisemitic imagery. The students in the novel learned about the Holocaust in educational units, but they had not heard survivors’ stories or engaged actively in a project of memory, slotting the Holocaust into the same category as other distant, historical events for them. When the community comes together to actualize the Holocaust and its lingering impact, the students in the book are able to deepen their own understanding. Korman’s message is clear: that it takes education, both in school and within the community, to combat hatred, which often stems from ignorance.
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