Thank you to NetGalley and River Grove books for an ARC of this memoir.

As a teacher, one of the things that have been stressed in recent staff meetings is the concept of generational trauma. A significant portion of my students have had challenging familial situations or have friends/family experiencing trauma both first and second hand. This is a topic that has been coming up more and more in the news and media, which is a critical mental health concern. Little Boy, I Know Your Name is a prime example of how generational trauma has the trickle effect, affecting generation after generation in one way or another,
Thank you to NetGalley and River Grove books for an ARC of this memoir.

Author Mitchell Raff does a great job describing his childhood, parenthood and the trickle down effect that generational trauma continues to have on families and the difficulties in changing behavior away from this trauma. Mitchell’s parents are abusive and neglectful as they try to forge ahead, broken after surviving the Holocaust. Due to the Holocaust being such a widely affecting atrocity in history, it made me wonder how many families are suffering through generational trauma because of this event.

Mitchell spends the majority of his story, however, identifying how his childhood affected his relationships and parenting. This memoir is very introspective, where Mitchell identifies all his failings in maintaining healthy relationships and the potential whys behind them, all the while trying to make changes to be a better person. Between absent parenting and using addiction to cope, he attempts to change the path of his family and stop the path of destruction that trauma has woven into his family.

I found this memoir to be a very quick read and difficult to put down. I empathized with Mitchell as he struggled through his experiences and attempted to make better choices. I found this to be an incredibly moving memoir which so many can relate to, answering the “why” someone may be treating others poorly and how generational trauma seeps through to children not even born yet.

This book has been an incredible story of the life of a man that is filled with heartbreaking traumas starting in his young childhood age, with a broken, dysfunctional family all the way to his painful adulthood years as a family man.
This book is a roller coaster of a life filled with afflictions, losses, deep addictions and so much more that makes you wonder how Mitchell Raff survived the darkness that followed him everywhere for so long.
Every loss, every trauma felt so real in the reader’s heart that I truly felt the heaviness of his pain so deeply…
This book took my breath away.
Despite the sadness that I felt throughout this incredible memoir, it still brought so much hope to know the power of perseverance that God has given to each and everyone of us. Some such as Mitchell are examples of this incredible gift and they demonstrate this gift so beautifully. What an inspiration to see how he overcame the stumbling blocks of his life despite of the losses of so many loved ones that he endured.
This book is truly the story of a man who was broken under the unfortunate circumstances of his life but he turned all that into an amazing success story of helping others by shinning his light on them.
Amazing book that I will share with many for sure...
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What a memoir! What an inspirational yet devastating read! This book affected me! I knew little about Jewish culture or holocaust survivors and in all honesty thought little about the generational impact. I do however have an educational and professional background in trauma and providing trauma therapies. This is a fantastic honest insight into all of the above. It had me engaged throughout, feeling many emotions and wanting to see how things turn out. I feel privileged to have read this and it’s provided me with a lot to consider. Thank you.

Little Boy, I Know Your Name is a heartbreaking memoir of a man who inherited the traumas of his Holocaust surviving family. Mitchell Raff paints a painful history of the chapters of his life growing up in the midst of the trauma's manifestations, including the physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother.

As a frequent reader of books with tough themes and topics, I'm finding myself struggling to digest what I read. This topic is so important and well-worth the read, but be sure to emotionally prepare yourself. Experiencing Raff's life, as he wrote it, I was struck by how drawn in I was, experiencing each memory to the fullest extent I'm able (as a reader). Wonderfully written, very complicated book that everyone must read. ** Don't skip the epilogue! It's crucial to tying together WHY Raff wanted to share his story!

I absolutely was hooked after reading the first couple of pages and I finished the book in a few hours. To think that the Holocaust still affects people of the 21st century and destroys lives still to this day just befuddles me. The author was able to communicate his horrific childhood very simply and quite bravely. Despite all the violence Mitchell Raff endures from his mother, he doesn’t seem bitter or angry.. He is able to compartmentalize the bad parts of his life from the good which is quite remarkably after all the mental and physical abuse he sustains at the hands of his holocaust surviving mother. I think the best part of this book is how the author despite the years of abuse, he is still able to accept love from other people in his life. He so gently describes and communicates to the reader how special his relationship with his Uncle Issa is throughout his life, Although this book is undoubtedly sad and unbelievably painful to read, you can’t put it down. He learned only violence from his mother and nothing else. It takes so much courage to tell a story like this. Mitchell Raff not only. tells his story so humbly but so eloquently. He really has inspired me.

This book could not have been better timed. In Israel, an entire generation has been traumatized by the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, which were the most serious crimes against the Jewish people since the Second World War. The atrocities of that horrible day will weigh upon not just the survivors, but their children.

In this harrowing volume, Mitchell Raff describes a phenomenon that is little understood, which is how impact of genocide can continue into future generations.

Raff is unsparing with himself and his family as he describes how the trauma of the Holocaust carried into the behavior of his parents and impacted upon his life. This is not always an easy read. But it is an essential one. It is also admirable.

This book covers the fascinating and neglected subject of inter generational trauma linked to Holocaust survivors and does so in a brutally honest way. The author does not shy away from his own poor choices and behaviours, highlighting them and illustrating his understanding of how they impacted others. His observation about whether he would choose not to be born at all was deeply insightful and courageous. The Holocaust has had such lasting impacts on so many and this book shows the heroism as well as the price so many survivors paid. A fascinating and well written book. While I found the author and his decisions challenging, I deeply admire his honesty and preparedness to lay his life open in order to educate and help others.