The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

The Tree of Life: How a Holocaust Sapling Inspired the Worl by Elisa Boxer, illustrated by Alianna Rozentsveig Rocky Pond Books (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2024 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Melissa Lasher Buy at Bookshop.org The Tree of Life tells the story of the Holocaust by focusing on how children in one ghetto nurtured a single smuggled-in sapling. Its message is as essential today as it was when the tree took root almost eighty years ago: hope triumphs over fear. In the ghetto, a teacher risks her life by simply teaching—and by asking a prisoner to smuggle in a sapling for Tu BiShvat. The prisoner, also risking his life, hides the sapling in his boot. The children are scared and thirsty—and yet each shares a few drops of their daily water allotment with the tree, which grows and thrives, bringing hope to the entire ghetto. A third-person narrator creates distance between young readers and the fearful children in the story. The streamlined, soothing prose buffers the

Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust by Neal Shusterman, illustrated by Andrés Vera Martínez Graphix (imprint of Scholastic), 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Stacie Ramey Buy at Bookshop.org In the author’s note, Shusterman discusses why he wrote this graphic novel despite his concerns about his ability to bring something new to this important subject. While it’s true that there are many other works dedicated to the Holocaust, Courage to Dream is a standout in a crowded field. It is an important read: entertaining, thought provoking, and evocatively drawn by an illustrator who lists his Tejano family’s violent struggles with white supremacy in Texas as a relatable factor in his background. Courage to Dream looks at hope through the lens of storytelling, but is also supported by carefully researched historical facts and drawings. It is told in parts, each delineated by a Hebrew letter, with an explanation at the back of the book as to the specific meanings of each of

Facing the Enemy: How a Nazi Youth Camp in America Tested a Friendship by Barbara Krasner Calkins Creek (imprint of Astra Books for Young Readers), 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Merle Eisman Carrus Buy at Bookshop.org Facing the Enemy is a book written in verse about a time in American history that should not be forgotten. Written in an easily readable poetic style, Krasner tells the story of two friends who are growing up near Newark, NJ during the rise in power of Adolf Hitler in Germany. It is the summer of 1937. Benjy is turning 14 this summer and looking forward to spending it with his best friend Thomas before they enter high school in the fall. Benjy is from a loving Jewish family, living with his mother and father. His father is a member of the Newark Minutemen, a group of former prize fighters who are working to dismantle the Nazi Bund growing around New Jersey. Thomas lives with his timid mother and his frustrated father, who misses Germany and the life he left behind

Run and Hide: How Jewish Youth Escaped the Holocaust written and illustrated by Don Brown Clarion Books (imprint of HarperCollins), 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Judy Ehrenstein Buy at Bookshop.org Employing his signature angular, thin-line style and a subdued palette of grays and browns with effective pops of red, orange, and yellow, Don Brown presents the rise of the Nazis and the devastation they brought to the world, succinctly and powerfully. Beginning with the end of WWI and the economic woes of post-war Germany, he traces Hitler’s rise to power with a rhetoric of blame that is eagerly accepted by Germans. Moving through restrictions on Jewish life and employment, Kristallnacht, and roundups of adults, Brown keeps his focus on the lives of children: those sent on Kindertransports; those who were hidden; and those who survived by their own wits. While concentration camps are mentioned, this is not a book about those children sent to the camps. The work of resistance groups

The Pebble: An Allegory of the Holocaust by Marius Marcinkevičius, illustrated by Inga Dagilė Thames & Hudson, 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Rebecca Greer   Buy at Bookshop.org Eitan is a young boy living in a ghetto in Lithuania. Although they cannot leave the ghetto, everyone tries to make the best of what they have. People still gather to laugh, bake food, and hold events at a theater, including a violin performance by Eitan. While they try to go on with their lives, the threat of the Nazi soldiers in their town looms over them. Eitan’s father was taken “to work” and never returned. Illustrations chiefly use blacks, browns, and military green over white and gray backgrounds, producing a dreary and somber mood. The main exception is yellow, reflecting the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear, and which all the Jewish characters have on their chests. Light blues surround Eitan's best friend Rivka, with whom he can still be a kid, before they are ripped apart when he

What Rosa Brought by Jacob Sager Weinstein, illustrated by Eliza Wheeler Katherine Tegen Books (imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Jeanette Brod Buy at Bookshop.org What Rosa Brought shares a message of universal relevance: you carry love with you wherever you go. This Holocaust story speaks across generations about choices and responses to persecution, fear and an uncertain future. It is a gentle picture book told from a child’s point of view about the misfortunes of one Jewish family as they face the hatred that accompanies the Nazi rise to power and the frustrations of the search for visas and escape. The setting is Vienna, Austria, at the time of the Anschluss. Young Rosa asks the naive questions that juxtapose the fate of her cat with the fate of her family. The wisdom of her grandmother exists in loving counterpoint. Rosa’s parents struggle with diminishing options during Nazi boycotts of Jewish stores, food shortages, long lines at the

Artifice by Sharon Cameron Scholastic Press, 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Merle Eisman Carrus Buy at Bookshop.org Artiface is a thrilling novel that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat with their heart in their throat until the last page of the book. From the first page until the last we are concerned about Isa de Smit’s welfare. Isa is a young woman in Amsterdam, who lived a colorful, exciting life with her parents above their small art gallery until the Nazis invaded. Now, her mother has died, her father seems depressed and uncommunicative and her best friend Truus has joined the secretive resistance. The Nazis have started buying and confiscating all the artwork of the Dutch painters. To get money for herself and her father to stay in their gallery, Isa takes a huge risk, bringing a forged copy of a Rembrandt painting her talented father has painted and selling it to the Nazis. Isa finds out that Truus is working to smuggle Jewish children out of Amsterdam and needs m

Harboring Hope: The True Story of How Henny Sinding Helped Denmark's Jews Escape the Nazis by Susan Hood HarperCollins, 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Meira Drazin Buy at Bookshop.org Toward the end of Harboring Hope there is a quote attributed to the Israeli-Danish journalist Herbert Pundik: “About 99 percent of the Jews in Denmark survived while 98 percent of Poland’s three million Jews perished.” Harboring Hope is the story of how the Danish people saved the Jews of their country. The nonfiction middle grade book written in free verse is anchored by the story of 22-year-old Henny Sinding, who with the crew of the small but intrepid Gerda III, successfully smuggled more than 300 Jews across the water to Sweden— ten to fifteen men, women and children at a time in the fish hold. The breadth and extent of research, including oral testimonies and other primary sources, is ambitious and expertly integrated, not only into a cohesive and riveting story, but also into free verse

Impossible Escape: A True Story of Survival and Heroism in Nazi Germany by Steve Sheinkin Roaring Brook Press (imprint of Macmillan), 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Emily Roth Buy at Bookshop.org When Rudi Vrba decides to escape from Auschwitz in 1944, the 19 year old has already defied death many times, so he figures, why not try again? In the two years that he has been imprisoned at Auschwitz, Rudi has not only survived daily unspeakable horrors, he has also gleaned crucial information about how the camp operates. By befriending Filip Müller, another prisoner who works in the gas chamber, Rudi has obtained detailed notes about how Auschwitz functions--information that proves, once and for all, that the camp's purpose is to murder as many people as possible. Along with his friend Alfred Wetzler, Rudi develops an incredibly complicated plan for escape, and eventually becomes one of the first whistleblowers to alert the world to the atrocities of the Holocaust. Impossible Esca

The Blood Years by Elana K. Arnold Balzer + Bray (imprint of HarperCollins), 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Sarah Aronson Buy at Bookshop.org The Blood Years is a riveting, unputdownable story of love, loss, and family, based on the true experiences of Elana K. Arnold's grandmother's struggle to survive the Holocaust in Romania. Frederieke (Rieke) Teitler and her older sister, Astra, live with their grandfather and mother in wartime Romania. As the Russians and Nazis take over the city and persecute Jewish residents, Rieke experiences loss, rape, hunger, and illness, all while maintaining her hope that the sine wave that is life will shift in their favor. The source of hope is her grandfather, Opa, whose faith and resourcefulness holds them together even as fickle and selfish Astra, falling in love with a dashing philandering doctor, tests the strength of the family's fabric. Unlike in many books about the Holocaust, the family does not go to a concentration camp--bu

White Bird: A Novel by R.J. Palacio with Erica Perl, illustrated by R.J. Palacio Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers (imprint of Penguin Random House), 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Jacqueline Jules   Buy at Bookshop.org Some readers prefer prose. For this reason, R.J Palacio’s editor suggested a novelization of Palacio’s acclaimed graphic novel, White Bird. Palacio agreed but felt that the story needed new energy for a new approach. Co-author Erica Perl has done an excellent job of offering readers an opportunity to experience this compelling story in prose format.  The novel begins with Julian from Palacio’s book, Wonder , FaceTiming his grandmother in Paris to gather information for a school project. In a refreshing change, technology connects rather than separates the generations, allowing Julian to learn Grandmére’s painful past.  Grandmére begins her story in the 1930’s when she was known as Sara Blum. Adored by two loving parents, Sara acknowledges that she lived a

Questions I am Asked About the Holocaust: Young Readers Edition by Hédi Fried; translated from the Swedish by Alice E. Olsson, illustrated by Laila Ekboir Scribble Books, 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Heather J. Matthews Buy at Bookshop.org Written by survivor Hédi Fried, and adapted for young audiences from the 2017 original edition, this book is a collection of questions which Hédi is frequently asked when lecturing at schools. Early in the book, Hédi writes “One of the lessons from the Holocaust is this: never get used to injustice.” This idea sets the tone of much of the book – Hédi’s life story and subsequent answers to questions she is asked surround the idea that it is only with education and proactive efforts that we can both remember the Holocaust while also working to prevent such atrocities from occurring again. Readers learn that Hédi was nineteen when, on May 17, 1944, she arrived Auschwitz. Alongside her sister, Hédi was sent to three different labor camps over th

Hidden Hope: How A Toy and a Hero Saved Lives During the Holocaust by Elisa Boxer, illustrated by Amy June Bates Harry N. Abrams (imprint of Abrams Books), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Rachel Simon   Buy at Bookshop.org   Hidden Hope: How A Toy and a Hero Saved Lives During the Holocaust tells the story of the brave Jewish teenager, Judith Geller, who posed as a Christian social worker in France. Using false papers as “Jacqueline Guither”, she was able to save many people by giving them forged papers made in secret workshops. One of the ways was through a simple toy: a wooden duck. When stopped by the Nazis, who would suspect a social worker visiting her “assigned” families with a toy? As part of the French Resistance, Jacqueline and others were able to save thousands of those in need of escape from the horrors going on, many of whom were in hiding. Though the book covers a difficult topic, it never becomes too dark for young readers. Elissa Boxer’s text is simple but effect

The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz: A True Story Retold for Young Readers by Jeremy Dronfield Quill Tree Books (imprint of HarperCollins), 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Ronda Einbinder Buy at Bookshop.org In 1938 Hitler decides to invade Austria, disrupting the lives of the Kleinmann family. Jeremy Dronfield details the story of two brothers who lived to tell their very different experiences. Kurt, who was ten years old when he was sent to America, was a personal friend of Dronfield and shared his father Gustav’s diary on which this book is based. Brother Fritz is taken away with Gustav to begin years of suffering and survival together. Fritz is given an opportunity to be freed but chooses to go to the most brutal camp of them all, Auschwitz, with his father. Kurt's life is quite different. He is loved by the family who has taken him in, attending camp each summer and celebrating his Bar Mitzvah. Sister Edith is sent to England and is able to keep in touch with

Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport  by Caren Stelson, illustrated by Selina Alko Carolrhoda (imprint of Lerner Publishing Group), 2023 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Heather J. Matthews Buy at Bookshop.org Opening with the Talmud quote “save one life, save the world,” Stars of the Night tells the nonfiction story of a group of children. With narration in the third person plural, the reader is transported to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1939. With a group of Jewish children ages from 7 to 10, we are shown scenes of sunny afternoon picnicking with mothers and hot chocolate-filled café nights with fathers. However, by November 1938, “something happened,” and the city of Prague is surrounded by tent camps filled with war refugees. Soon, the children begin to experience threats from local children, and the parents of Prague beginning making “arrangements” with a mysterious and unnamed man. These nebulous arrangements, we find out later, come to fruitio

The Librarian of Auschwitz Based on the novel by Antonio Iturbe, adapted by Salva Rubio, translated by Lilit Žekulin Thwaites, illustrated by Loreto Aroca Godwin Books, 2023 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Emily Roth Buy at Bookshop.org The Librarian of Auschwitz: The Graphic Novel by Salva Rubio is adapted from Antonio Iturbe’s 2017 novel, a fictionalized account of the life of Dita Kraus. When fourteen-year-old Dita is imprisoned in Auschwitz, she is assigned to Camp BIIb, where inmates can keep their own clothes, their heads aren’t shaved, and they can stay with their families. Camp BIIb even has a school for children, where Dita is given a special job due to her ability to speak fluent German and Czech: librarian of eight illegal books. The spark of hope the library provides infuses the rest of the story, even as the threat of Dr. Josef Mengele and his experiments loom over everything, even as Dita witnesses the deaths of her friends and family, and even as the real, devastating p

Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by Nita Tyndall HarperTeen (imprint of HarperCollins), 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Dena Bach Buy at Bookshop.org   In the summer before World War II begins, Charlotte “Charlie” Kraus, chafing under Hitler’s regulations, follows her best friend Angelika, “Geli,” the daughter of a Nazi officer, to a forbidden, hidden dance club. Despite their complicated feelings for each other, Charlie and Geli feel the thrill and freedom of dancing to the “degenerate” jazz music played there. As their lives in Berlin become more restricted, Charlie and Geli, along with friends Renate and Minna, find a kind of resistance to the Nazi regime by joining the “Swingjugend” movement. Historically, these groups of mostly middle- or upper-class teens, in opposition to Nazi policies, would dance in private homes or clubs to banned American music while dressed like the British and Americans. These clubs were a response to the “Hitlerjugend,” Hitler Youth groups, that those