Book Tantrum! ! !: Oprah Should Make 2009 Book Resolution

If your Oprah with bookstores gumming up book jackets with the "Oprah Good Reading Seal Of Approval" slapped on to entice the literate public, 2008 was not the best year. Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived and A Million Little Pieces kind of describe Oprah Winfrey's life, but they are really two Rocky Mountain speed bump books on her literary creds. James Frey wrote a biographical tale that was pseudo and the Rosenblat faux holocaust romance was just psycho. That's just gotta make a busy billionaress cry who already jettisoned books from her TV confab once before. Today, would be a great day for Lady O to make a New Year's resolution on checking the fine print of every single author AND publisher due diligence before putting her name out there. Er, sloppy staff work possibly?

Oprah's had some whoppers when it comes to book issues. Ms. Winfrey put the amazing not in stock very often Kindle on her new favorite things list. Ugh. Then the Frey grilling she gave the author after the lie became public a while ago left him in a million little muscle knots. Then right before taping Oprah to augment the books February release, the bombshell exploded, that oops, we have an octogenarian impostor or rather collaborating impostors. Angel Girl by Laurie Freidman was a published children's story inspired by Herman & Roma Rosenblats' not so true recollections.

2 Tantrum(s):

Anonymous
Friday, January 02, 2009 12:38:00 AM: This hoax is a tragedy. The Rosenblats have hurt Jews all over and given support to those who deny the holocaust. I don't understand why Atlantic Pictures is still proceeding to make a film based on a lie. I also don't understand how Oprah could have publicized this story, especially after James Frey and given that many bloggers like Deborah Lipstadt said in 2007 that the Rosenblat's story couldn't be true.
There are so many other worthwhile projects based on genuine love stories from the Holocaust. My favorite is the one about Dina Gottliebova Babbitt - the beautiful young art student who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the children's barracks at Auschwitz. This painting became the reason Dina and her Mother survived Auschwitz. After the end of the war, Dina applied for an art job in Paris. Unbeknownst to Dina, her interviewer was the lead animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They fell in love and got married. Now that's a romantic love story! I also admire Dina for her tremendous courage to paint the mural in the first place. Painting the mural for the children caused her to be taken to Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. She thought she was going to be gassed, but bravely she stood up to Mengele and he made her his portrait painter, saving herself and her mother from the gas chamber.

Also, Dina's story has been verified as true. Some of the paintings she did for Mengele in Auschwitz survived the war and are at the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum. The story of her painting the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the children's barrack has been corroborated by many other Auschwitz prisoners, and of course her love and marriage to the animator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the Disney movie after the war in Paris is also documented.

Why wasn't the Rosenblatt's story checked out before it was published and picked up to have the movie made?? I would like to see true and wonderful stories like Dina's be publicized, not these hoax tales that destroy credibility and trust.
Maureen
Friday, January 02, 2009 11:58:00 AM: one that is remarkable and worthy of more exposure, especially in the way you write about it. Thank you for all of the exceptional detail and the reasoning.