The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

We Survived the Holocaust: The Bluma and Felix Goldberg Story by Frank W. Baker, illustrated by Tim E. Ogline Image and Wonder, 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Lisa Trank Buy at Bookshop.org The field of graphic novels often covers difficult topics through a delicate balance of the visual and the word. In the world of Jewish literature, graphic novels provide a unique way to tell the story of the Holocaust to a wide range of audiences, and in particular, younger readers. The graphic novel We Survived the Holocaust by Frank W. Baker and Tim E. Ogline began with a simple request. “Frankie, do something with this,” Felix Goldberg said, handing the author the speech he’d just delivered to their South Carolina synagogue on Yom Hashoah in 2000. Baker, a lifelong friend of the Goldbergs, worked with the family to create www.storiesofsurvival.org , a website dedicated to the Goldbergs' life before, during, and after World War II, and their life in South Carolina. However, after rea

The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs by Chana Siefel, illustrated by Susan Gal Scholastic Press, 2022 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Jeannette Brod Buy at Bookshop.org In The Tower of Life: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs , Chana Stiefel and Susan Gal have created a fitting tribute to the creator of the Tower of Life (or Tower of Faces) at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Professor Yaffa Eliach spent much of her professional life gathering photos, diaries, and stories from the village of Eishyshok that her family fled as the Nazis invaded. When charged with creating a Holocaust memorial for the Museum, she traveled across continents and into the homes of Holocaust survivors to gather nearly 6,000 photographs from inhabitants of her town. She hoped to create a memorial that would capture the dignity and humanity of the townspeople who lived ordinary lives in unsuspecting innocence

Heroines, Rescuers, Rabbis, Spies: Unsung Women of the Holocaust by Sarah Silberstein Swartz, illustrated by Liz Parkes Second Story Press, 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Jeanette Brod Buy at Bookshop.org Sarah Silberstein Swartz brings a unique set of professional credentials and personal experiences to the researching and writing of Heroines, Rescuers, Rabbis, Spies: Unsung Women of the Holocaust . As a daughter of survivors, she fulfills her objective of providing role models and inspiration for a new generation. She gives the reader an opportunity to engage with many aspects of the Holocaust in many European countries from an avowedly feminist perspective. This is an eclectic assemblage of biographies that follows nine women from childhood through the Holocaust and postwar rebuilding of the rest of their lives. A few of the women reflect that their most difficult times came after the war with the realization of the loss of family and the despair of not knowing where to go. It

Hidden on the Hire Wire by Kathy Kacer Second Story Press, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Merle Eisman Carrus Buy at Bookshop.org Hidden on the High Wire tells the story of a traveling family circus. Author Kathy Kacer begins the story in November, 1939 in Germany. Irene Danner is 13 years old and the star performer on the high wire for the Lorch Family Circus. She learned her balancing act from her grandfather, who has recently died. He passed the family business to her father, as the first Danner to run the Lorch family circus in four generations, as the ringmaster. These are difficult times for the Jewish people living in Germany and it is becoming dangerous and ultimately impossible for the Lorch Family to continue traveling and performing. The circus is sold and Irene's father is sent to serve in the army. Irene and her mother are hiding from the Nazis. Reading a circus poster, Irene discovers the perfect way to protect herself and her mother. She approaches a German f

The Vanishing by David Michael Slater Library Tales Publishing, 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Merle Eisman Carrus Buy at Bookshop.org The story of the Golem goes back generations. The original Golem was created to help the Jewish people of Prague during a time of peril. Now author David Michael Slater uses a similar fantasy to make a very disturbing topic more palatable for the teen reader. This is a story of the faith, strength, and fortitude of a young girl as she helps her friend survive the most horrific experience of his life. Sophie Siegel and her parents have been moving from town to town as the pogroms are getting more prevalent. The rules increase, restricting the lives of the Jewish people. Sophie doesn't want to wear a yellow star on her jacket or stop going to school. The day she is finally to be awarded for her studiousness and be named Top Student in her class, the Nazis come to school and send all the Jewish children home. She and her friend Giddy next door s

The Brass Charm by Monique Polak, illustrated by Marie LaFrance Scholastic Canada, 2022 Category: Picture Books  Reviewer: Cynthia Levinson Buy at Amazon.ca   The Brass Charm is a Holocaust story with an endearing twist. It does not take place during the Second World War, but in the current day. After a storm blows the roof off Tali's house, she goes to stay with Oma, her Holocaust survivor grandmother. Tali is sad about the loss of her home, her bed, and her books, but Oma gently lets her know that people have survived much worse. She explains that kindness and generosity make hard times easier, and shares her own story and the brass monkey man charm given to her by a fellow prisoner in Terezin on her birthday many years ago. This story gives Tali the courage to reach out to a lonely neighboring child and make friends. Using storm metaphors and realistic details, the story is based on true events. In the backmatter, the author briefly explains the Holocaust and that her mother

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis by Susan Hood with Greg Dawson Harper (imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Karin Fisher-Golton Buy at Bookshop.org Among its many strong attributes, Alias Anna is a tribute to the power of girls. A modern girl’s bold and caring question leads to her grandmother sharing a story she had kept inside for decades. And the protagonist, Zhanna, and her sister Frina’s talents and resourceful choices help them survive Holodomor (the Stalin-contrived Ukrainian famine), local antisemitism, and the Holocaust. Despite having very different personalities, both sisters love music and piano from a young age. They become the two youngest scholarship recipients at the Kharkov Conservatory of Music. While their musical talents contribute to their survival, their notoriety as performers creates obstacles as well. Susan Hood adapted Greg Dawson’s extensive interviews and projects for adults to portray Dawson’s mother’

I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who Survived Auschwitz by Eva Mozes Kor with Danica Davidson Little, Brown & Company, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Stacey Rattner Buy at Bookshop.org I Will Protect You is the raw, tough true story of Romanian identical twins Eva and Miriam, told from young Eva’s point of view. “We were two girls against the Nazi regime,” she writes early on, vowing to make it through. The book is bitterly honest and descriptive and yet completely appropriate for middle grade readers. “The scariest stories Mama had told me before bed were nothing compared to the scary reality we were living in.” The late Eva Mozes Kor’s words told through Danica Davidson’s writing make it easy to share, remember and never forget this scary story. At Auschwitz, Eva and Miriam are separated from the rest of their family and are selected to be subjects for Dr. Mengele’s twin experiments. Powerful Dr. Mengele, who invoked fear in the SS guards, was someone that Eva wo

Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust by Renee Hartman with Joshua M. Green Scholastic, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Heather J. Matthews Buy at Bookshop.org Based on video testimonial recorded in 1979, Signs of Survival tells the stories of two sisters, Renee and Herta, and their experiences during the Holocaust. Renee, who is hearing, and Herta, who is deaf, recount their childhoods in Bratislava, the capital of what was once Czechoslovakia. The story begins in 1939, with the Nazi invasion of Bratislava, and the family being pushed into a ghetto. Through careful maneuvering by their parents, Renee and Herta are sent to live in the foothills or the Tarta Mountains, masquerading as Christians by 1943. However, the sisters are soon deported to Bergen-Belson concentration camp. Readers learn about Renee and Herta’s lives in Bergen-Belsen, their liberation, and their eventual lives in the United States. As this book is based on video testimonials of both Renee and Herta, th

Just a Girl: A True Story of World War II by Lia Levi, translated by Sylvia Notini, illustrated by Jess Mason HarperCollins, 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Rinat Hadad Siegel Buy at Bookshop.org Just a Girl was first published in 1994 as a memoir for adults, written in Italian. It won the Elsa Morante First Novel Prize and was Lia Levi's debut novel. In its new adaptation for young readers the memoire is a remarkable read for children ages 8-12. The story is based on Lia's personal experience during World War II, and is told from the point of view of a child. Lia is a shy young girl living in Turin, Italy, when the world starts changing rapidly around her, but not in a good way. Lia’s voice throughout the story is innocent yet striking, simple yet captivating. Lia is asking the right questions, at the right time, about war, hate, discrimination and loyalty. The reader experiences the uprooting of Lia’s world while she learns to adapt to new homes, new schools, new restr

Under the Iron Bridge by Kathy Kacer Second Story Press Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Sandy Wasserman Buy at Bookshop.org In the months leading up to Kristallnacht (on Wednesday, November 9, 1938), we meet a class of German students: Jews and non-Jews, learning together at school in Dusseldorf. Boys are encouraged to join the Hitler Youth, and little by little it becomes clear to Paul what his beloved new German leadership is up to. He and his physically weaker friend, Harold, realize early on that they have to play the game as ‘good Germans’ but Paul also takes the risk of also joining a group of teenagers who meet to carry out counter tactics to sabotage Nazi efforts, under the shadows of the Iron Bridge. They are the Edelweiss Group, which after the war was honored for their efforts at Yad VaShem as Righteous Gentiles. Among their classmates is a Jewish friend, Analie, whom Paul saves by the end of the book.  Paul is the perfect example of a young person who is an upstander; he s

A Boy Is Not a Ghost by Edeet Ravel Groundwood Books Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Merle Eisman Carrus   Buy at Bookshop.org A Boy is Not a Ghost is an incredible story. Written by Edeet Ravel as a sequel to A Boy is Not a Bird , it is the story of a young boy caught up in life during the Second World War in Russia. Readers will feel like they have stepped into the shoes of Natt Silver and really understand what it was like to live through this horrific experience. Natt is twelve years old as he rides with his mother and their neighbors in the cattle car of a train headed for Siberia. He describes in perfect detail the sounds, smells and crowded conditions on the train as they slowly travel across Russia for two long months. The food is scarce and the weather gets colder as they travel north. His father is in a Gulag or prison under extreme conditions. He and his mother do not know where they are going to end up or what life will be like there. Then his mother is falsely arrested.

Call Across the Sea by Kathy Kacer Annick Press Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Sandy Wasserman Buy at Bookshop.org I was blown away by this book; I can’t say it any other way. While there’s the need for and interest in Holocaust books for children, so many teachers and parents are not comfortable with the negativity in so many of them, because of the fear of frightening children with graphic images of starvation and worse. This book, on the other hand, is totally positive in numerous ways! Uplifting! We meet the protagonist, a teen, a positive force! On the first page, we feel her love for Denmark, her understanding of her entire community including the Jewish people in it, her neighbors. We see her strength and character and desire to be part of a youth resistance movement when Hitler comes to power and the Nazis, the Gestapo, show up in growing numbers in Denmark. The reader is introduced into Henny’s school life, her entry into the Danish resistance, even the people wh