Fiction Resources M-Z
MacDonald, M. (2013). Odette’s secrets. New York: Bloomsbury.
“Odette is a young Jewish girl living in Paris during a dangerous time. The Nazis have invaded the city, and every day brings new threats. After Odette’s father enlists in the French army and her mother joins the Resistance, Odette is sent to the countryside until it is safe to return.
“On the surface, she leads the life of a regular girl—going to school, doing chores, and even attending Catholic Mass with other children. But inside, she is burning with secrets about the life she left behind and her true identity.
“Inspired by the life of the real Odette Meyers—and written in moving free-verse poetry—this is a story of courage, of determination to survive, and of a young girl forced to hide in plain sight.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/odettes-secrets-maryann-macdonald/1106910640?ean=9781599907505
Nominee, Bluebonnet Award, 2014
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2014
Age Range: 10-14 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.1; 580L
Teacher’s Guide:
Matas, C. (1987). Lisa’s war. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.
“Matas offers a powerful account of a young Jewish girl who fights back after the Germans invade Denmark in 1940. Lisa, 12, and her brother Stefan join the Danish resistance when the Germans invade Copenhagen. Stefan is deeply involved in the movement, undertaking missions to sabotage German-run factories, while Lisa and her friend Susanne distribute pamphlets published by the resistance. When Susanne’s parents are killed by the Germans, Lisa, too, becomes as involved as Stefan. Over the three-year period that this book documents, thousands of Danish Jews must flee their country to save themselves; Lisa and Stefan risk their own lives helping hundreds of Jews escape safely to Sweden. Lisa describes her experiences in the first-person present tense, creating a potent immediacy. Through the riveting narration, the rising tension in the country is effectively conveyed. An unsettling, important novel.” [from Publisher’s Weekly]
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lisas-war-carol-matas/1100478016?ean=9781416961635
Age Range: 7-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.8; 600L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1990). Code name Kris. New York: Scribner’s.
“In this sequel to Lisa’s War, Matas again presents a stirring account of a youth’s struggle to fight the Nazis who occupy Denmark during World War II. In the earlier book Jesper helps his Jewish friends Stefan and Lisa escape to Sweden. Three years later Jesper, 17, is still working for the Danish resistance. He recounts the dangerous events that lead to his confinement in a German prison. Jesper becomes actively involved in the underground press, which spreads news about what is really happening in the war. When Stefan returns to Denmark, he teams up with Jesper to fight the Nazis. Matas’s extensive research, combined with powerful characterization and compelling narration, creates an intense, provocative novel. Lucid, incisive descriptions will entice as well as educate readers."
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/code-name-kris-matas/1102041338?ean=9781416961628
Age Range: 8-12 years
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Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1993). Daniel’s story. New York: Scholastic.
“Daniel barely remembers leading a normal life before the Nazis came to power in 1933. He can still picture once being happy and safe, but memories of those days are fading as he and his family face the dangers threatening Jews in Hitler’s Germany in the late 1930s. No longer able to practice their religion, vote, own property, or even work, Daniel’s family is forced from their home in Frankfurt and sent on a long and dangerous journey, first to the Łódź ghetto in Poland, and then to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. Though many around him lose hope in the face of such terror, Daniel, supported by his courageous family, struggles for survival. He finds hope, life and even love in the midst of despair.
“Daniel, whose family suffers as the Nazis rise to power in Germany, describes his imprisonment in a concentration camp and his eventual liberation.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/daniels-story-carol-matas/1002276817?ean=9780590465885
Age Range: 10-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.9; 720L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1996). After the war. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
“ ‘Didn’t the gas ovens finish you all off?’ is the response that meets Ruth Mendenberg when she returns to her village in Poland after the liberation of Buchenwald at the end of World War II. Her entire family wiped out in the Holocaust, the fifteen-year-old girl has nowhere to go.
“Members of the underground organization [Brecha] find her, and she joins them in their dangerous quest to smuggle illegal immigrants to Palestine. Ruth risks her life to help lead a group of children on a daring journey over half a continent and across the sea to Eretz Israel, using secret routes and forged documents — and sheer force of will.
“This adventure will touch readers, who will marvel at the resources and inner strength of mere children helping other children to find a place in this world in which they can belong. Carol Matas, one of the foremost authors of historical fiction, brings the desperation and passion of this remarkable journey to life.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/after-the-war-carol-matas/1001208929?ean=9780689807220
Age Range: 12-15 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.9; 840L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1997). The garden. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
“After leading a group of Jewish refugees to Israel after World War II, sixteen-year-old Ruth joins the Haganah, the Jewish Army, and helps her people fight to keep the land granted to them by the United Nations.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=110308&recPointer=7&recCount=25
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.8; 810L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1998). Greater than angels. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
“In 1940, Anna Hirsch and her family are captured by the Nazis and deported to a refugee camp in the south of France. The children held in the camp are sent to Le Chambon, a tiny village whose citizens have agreed to care for deported children. There, in the face of escalating dominance and threats from the Nazi party, the good people of Le Chambon protect the refugees.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/greater-than-angels-carol-matas/1014691718?ean=9780689813535
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.3; 690L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1999). In my enemy’s house. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
“Award-winning novelist Carol Matas brings readers into the heart of Nazi Germany with the harrowing story of Marisa, a Polish Jew whose blonde hair and blue eyes make it easy for her to pass as a Christian. With the Nazis ready to herd the remaining Jews of her town into a ghetto, and with her family either scattered or dead, Marisa takes the papers of a Polish girl and in that disguise goes to Germany in a desperate attempt to survive as a Polish worker.
“After traveling to Weimar, Marisa finds work as a servant for the Reymanns, a wealthy farming family who treat her with dignity and respect. Their daughter Charlotte becomes fond of Marisa and wants to be her friend. Marisa’s life with the Reymanns may seem safe, the Reymanns appear fair, but she can never forget that Herr Reymann is a high-ranking Nazi official and Charlotte attends the League of German Maidens. Marisa is hiding in plain sight in her enemy’s house.
“Carol Matas’ unflinching account of Marisa’s dilemma as a Jew living a lie in order to survive will give readers a new perspective on the nature of good and evil even as it touches their hearts.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-my-enemys-house-carol-matas/1003173519?ean=9780689824005
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 1999
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.5; 560L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2013). Pieces of the past: The Holocaust diary of Rose Rabinowitz – Winnipeg, Canada, 1948. New York: Scholastic.
“As Rose begins her diary, she is in her third home since coming to Winnipeg. Traumatized by her experiences in the Holocaust, she struggles to connect with others, and above all, to trust again.
“When her new guardian, Saul, tries to get Rose to deal with what happened to her during the war, she begins writing in her diary about how she survived the murder of the Jews in Poland by going into hiding.
“Memories of herself and her mother being taken in by those willing to risk sheltering Jews, moving from place to place, being constantly on the run to escape capture, begin to flood her diary pages. Recalling those harrowing days, including when they stumbled on a resistance cell deep in the forest and lived underground in filthy conditions, begins to take its toll on Rose.”
summary from http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Canada-Holocaust-Rabinowitz-Winnipeg/dp/1443113077/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394722267&sr=1-1&keywords=carol+matas+canada
Honor Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2014
Age Range:
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.1
Teacher’s Guide:
Mazer, N. F. (1999). Good night, Maman. San Diego: Harcourt Brace.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/har021/98049220.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0733/98049220-b.html
“Karin Levi’s world of family, school, and friends is torn apart when the German army occupies Paris in June of 1940. Karin and her brother, Marc, like Jews all over Europe, find themselves on the run, seeking safety wherever they can find it. When Marc obtains two coveted places aboard a ship bound for the United States, Karin knows that crossing the ocean means she may never see her beloved parents again. Yet she and Marc have little choice if they are to survive. Karin’s unforgettable story—revealing the little-known world of a handful of European refugees in World War II America—tells of survival, of growing up, and of love’s ability to endure even the most extraordinary circumstances.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/good-night-maman-norma-fox-mazer/1101230792?ean=9780152061739
Age Range: 10 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.5; 510L
Teacher’s Guide:
McDonough, Y. Z. (2005). The doll with the yellow star. New York: H. Holt.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0701/2002027554-b.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0701/2002027554-d.html
“Nine-year-old Claudine doesn’t want to leave her much-loved home in France to go live in America, not without her parents. But she knows about the shortages, about the yellow stars Jews must wear, and about Adolf Hitler. And she knows that there are some things she needs to do even when she doesn’t want to. It’s wartime, and there is much that is different now. There are more things that Claudine will lose to this terrible war. But not everything that is lost must be lost forever. Here is a moving story about lost and found lives, and the healing power of love.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-doll-with-the-yellow-star-yona-zeldis-mcdonough/1003789894?ean=9780805099362
Age Range: 7-10 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.6; 830L
Teacher’s Guide:
Melnikoff, P. (1992). Prisoner in time: A child of the Holocaust. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society.
“When the Nazis take twelve-year-old Jan’s family away, [he] finds shelter with friends. But a year in their attic becomes too much for him and he ventures into the dangerous streets of the city, where he finds refuge in the old Jewish cemetery and the tomb of Rabbi Loewe, who created a legendary giant—the Golem—to save his people from oppression in sixteenth century Prague. Jan travels back in time. Will he find a way to escape from the fate that was to befall a million and a half Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Europe?”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/prisoner-in-time-pamela-melnikoff/1111331012?ean=9780827607354
Age Range: 10-13 years
Reading Level:
Teacher’s Guide:
Nolan, H. (2003). If I should die before I wake. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/har051/2002027503.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/har031/2002027503.html
“Hilary hates Jews. As part of a neo-Nazi gang in her town, she’s finally found a sense of belonging. But when she’s critically injured in an accident, everything changes.
“Somehow, in her mind, she has become Chana, a Jewish girl fighting for her own life in the ghettos and concentration camps of World War II.
“Han Nolan offers powerful insight into one young woman’s survival through the Holocaust and another’s journey out of hatred and self-loathing.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/if-i-should-die-before-i-wake-han-nolan/1117004537?ean=9780152046798
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.9; 840L
Teacher’s Guide:
Oppenheim, S. L. (1992). The lily cupboard: A story of the Holocaust. New York: HarperCollins.
“Miriam, a young Jewish girl, is forced to leave her parents and hide with strangers in the country during the German occupation of Holland.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=123814&recCount=25&recPointer=2&bibId=4835324
Age Range: 4-8 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 2.9; 420L
Teacher’s Guide:
Orlev, U. (1979). The lead soldiers. (H. Halkin, Trans.). New York: Taplinger.
“The Lead Soldiers is the story of two small Jewish boys during the Holocaust of World War II. At once a thrilling narrative and a delicate psychological study of men facing mass tragedy, it has been acclaimed as a classic of modern Hebrew literature.”
summary from http://www.librarything.com/work/4973989
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Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1983). The island on Bird Street. (H. Halkin, Trans.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm021/83026524.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0736/83026524-b.html
“During World War II a Jewish boy is left on his own for months in a ruined house in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he must learn all the tricks of survival under constantly life-threatening conditions.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=39969&recCount=25&recPointer=11&bibId=1407495
Winner, Batchelder Award, 1985
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.6; 690L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1991). The man from the other side. (H. Halkin, Trans.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm021/90047898.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0736/90047898-b.html
“Living on the outskirts of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, fourteen-year-old Marek and his grandparents shelter a Jewish man in the days before the Jewish uprising.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=39977&recCount=25&recPointer=30&bibId=582727
Winner, Batchelder Award, 1992
National Jewish Book Award – Children’s Literature, 1992
Age Range: 10-14 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.6; 930L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1995). The lady with the hat. (H. Halkin, Trans.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm021/94042128.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0736/94042128-b.html
“In 1947, seventeen-year-old Yulek, the only member of his immediate family to survive the German concentration camps, joins a group of young Jews preparing to live on a kibbutz in Israel, unaware that his aunt living in London is looking for him.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=39977&recCount=25&recPointer=18&bibId=654733
Winner, Batchelder Award, 1996
Age Range: 13 years & up
Reading Level: 840L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2003). Run, boy, run. (H. Halkin, Trans.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm031/2003001550.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0736/2003001550-b.html
“Based on the true story of a nine-year-old boy who escapes the Warsaw Ghetto and must survive throughout the war in the Nazi-occupied Polish countryside.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=39966&recCount=25&recPointer=0&bibId=13066323
Winner, Batchelder Award, 2004
Age Range: 10-14 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.0; 570L
Teacher’s Guide:
Paperny, M. (2005). The greenies. HarperCollins.
“It’s 1947. Danny survived Buchenwald Concentration Camp but lost his entire family. Now all he wants is to go to Canada, go to school, and get a job. Lilli, an Auschwitz survivor, has also been orphaned and is waiting patiently for a new life in Canada.”
summary from http://www.arbookfind.com/bookdetail.aspx?q=101560&l=EN&slid=473032487
Age Range:
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.6
Teacher’s Guide:
Polak, M. (2008). What world is left. Custer, WA: Orca Book Publishers.
“The unthinkable has happened. Anneke and her family have been taken by train from their comfortable home in Holland to Theresienstadt, a ‘model’ concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. But there is nothing model about bed bugs, starvation, disease, lice, hard labor and constant brutality. Despite the hunger, the anxiety and the pain, Anneke learns that she is capable of doing whatever it takes to survive. She also discovers that even the grayest of days can be brightened by a friend’s smile or a lover’s kiss.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/what-world-is-left-monique-polak/1100381446?ean=9781551438474
Nominee, YALSA “Best Books for Young Adults - Fiction”, 2009
Age Range: 12 years & up
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.9; 740L
Teacher’s Guide:
Pressler, M. (2002). Malka. (B. Murdoch, Trans.). London: Young Picador.
“When the round-ups start in the Polish village, Malka’s mother knows she must get her daughters across the Hungarian border to safety-a place where Jews can live in peace. But escape proves harder than they could have ever imagined. Raw and bleeding feet, bad weather, fear and homesickness fill their nights, until little Malka falls very ill, and must be left behind to be brought across when the threat has passed.
“But the threat doesn’t pass. Separated from her family, Malka finds herself in a terrifying world full of strangers, starvation, and constant fear of Nazi round-ups. Completely alone, she struggles to stay hidden in alleyways and old cellars, unaware that miles away, a broken-hearted mother is searching frantically for her lost little girl . . .”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/malka-mirjam-pressler/1103136256?ean=9780142402696
Age Range: 12-16 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.9
Teacher’s Guide:
Propp, V. W. (1999). When the soldiers were gone. New York: Putnam’s.
“Henk was hidden on the farm when he was young and the Nazi soldiers came. But the war is over now, and Henk finds out that the people he lives with, the people he loves, are not his real family. He doesn’t remember his real parents, and now a new life in the city lies ahead of him. Will things ever be the same?
“After the German occupation of the Netherlands, Benjamin leaves the Christian family with whom he had been living and reunites with his real parents who returned from hiding.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-the-soldiers-were-gone-vera-propp/1002958819?ean=9780698118812
Honor Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 1999
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.5; 540L
Teacher’s Guide:
Pryor, B. (2011). Simon’s escape: A story of the Holocaust. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow.
“Simon’s Escape opens with Simon Gorski jumping on his bed with a friend in the Gorski’s luxurious two-story Warsaw apartment, until they are interrupted by shots and look outside to see Germans soldiers shooting people in the streets. The Germans take over the city, gradually barring Jews from school, work, and ultimately, access to most food. As the Germans tighten their stranglehold, Simon is faced with no choice but to flee the city, meeting both cruelty and unanticipated generosity in his fight to survive.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/simons-escape-bonnie-pryor/1018061922?ean=9780766033887
Age Range: 10-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.7
Teacher’s Guide:
Radin, R. Y. (2000). Escape to the forest: Based on a true story of the Holocaust. New York: HarperCollins.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1310/99026426-b.html
“Ten-year-old Sarah and her family must leave their home and live in a Jewish ghetto surrounded by barbed wire. There, life is a nightmare of cold and hunger where Nazi soldiers kill Jews at will. But Sarah still hears stories that give her hope—stories about a man who lives in the nearby forest, fighting the Nazis and sheltering the Jews.
“Sarah’s brother thinks they should try to escape to the forest. Her parents think they will be safer where they are. Sarah doesn’t know who is right. But as life in the ghetto grows worse and worse, the forest may be their only hope.
“Based on a true story of life during the Holocaust, this is a heartrending novel of one family’s struggle to survive.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/escape-to-the-forest-ruth-y-radin/1114596241?ean=9780060285203
Age Range: 9 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.4; 660L
Teacher’s Guide:
Rappaport, D. (2005). The secret Seder. Disney-Hyperion Books.
“Jacques and his parents are hiding in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, pretending to be Catholics. On the first night of Passover, Jacques and his father elude Nazi soldiers to gather with other Jews and celebrate the Seder in secret. For this book, Doreen Rappaport researched the lives of resistance fighters and Jews in hiding: brave men and women who managed to survive one of the darkest times in history with their faith intact. Emily Arnold McCully’s intense and respectful paintings illuminate the perils of a turbulent time and the triumphs of a resilient people.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/secret-seder-doreen-rappaport/1100554571?ean=9780786807772
Age Range: 5-8 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.9; 590L
Teacher’s Guide:
Ross, S. (2002). The star houses: A story from the Holocaust. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/barrons041/2001098842.html
“Bandi Guttmann is a fourteen-year-old Hungarian Jew living in Budapest in 1944. German forces have occupied the city, and life for Bandi and his family is about to become unbearable. Set apart from the rest of the community and denied basic rights, the Guttmann family's only weapon is their determination to survive. But in the face of mindless Nazi hatred, will their strength, love, and courage be enough to hold them together?”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-star-houses-stewart-ross/1115376014?ean=9780764155284
Age Range: 10-13 years
Reading Level:
Teacher’s Guide:
Roy, J. R. (2006). Yellow star. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish.
“From 1939, when Syvia is four and a half years old, to 1945 when she has just turned ten, a Jewish girl and her family struggle to survive in Poland’s Łòdź ghetto during the Nazi occupation.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=298922&recCount=25&recPointer=157&bibId=14018078
Honor Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2007
Age Range: 10-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.3; 710L
Teacher’s Guide:
Schnur, S. (1994). The shadow children. New York: Morrow Junior Books.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hc044/94005098.html
“While spending the summer on his grandfather’s farm in the French countryside, eleven-year-old Etienne discovers a secret dating back to World War II and encounters the ghosts of Jewish children who suffered a dreadful fate under the Nazis.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=240981&recCount=25&recPointer=15&bibId=651253
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.9; 850L
Teacher’s Guide:
Sebald, W. G. (2001). Austerlitz. New York: Random House.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/random053/2001019785.html
Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/samples/random044/2001019785.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/random0411/2001019785.html
“Austerlitz is the story of a man’s search for the answer to his life’s central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/austerlitz-wg-sebald/1100642037?ean=9780812982619
Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award – Fiction, 2001
Winner, Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize – Fiction, 2002
RUSA “Notable Books for Adults” List – Fiction, 2002
Age Range:
Reading Level: AR Level – 9.6
Teacher’s Guide:
Spinelli, J. (2003). Milkweed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/random055/2003040109.html
Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/samples/random044/2003040109.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/random0414/2003040109.html
“He’s a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham.
“He’s a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He’s a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He’s a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He’s a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he’s a boy who realizes it’s safest of all to be nobody.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/milkweed-jerry-spinelli/1100292382?ean=9780440420057
YALSA “Best Books for Young Adults”, 2004
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2003
Age Range: 10-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.6; 510L
Teacher’s Guide:
Tarshis, L. (2014). I survived the Nazi invasion, 1944. New York: Scholastic.
“In one of the darkest periods in history, one boy struggles to survive...
“In this gripping new addition to the bestselling I SURVIVED series, a young Jewish boy escapes the ghetto and finds a group of resistance fighters in the forests of Poland. Does he have what it takes to survive the Nazis -- and fight back?”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-survived-the-nazi-invasion-1944-lauren-tarshis/1118036184?ean=9780545459389
Age Range: 7-10 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.1
Teacher’s Guide:
Thor, A. (2009). A faraway island. (L. Schenck, Trans.). New York: Delacorte Press.
“It’s the summer of 1939. Two Jewish sisters from Vienna—12-year-old Stephie Steiner and 8-year-old Nellie—are sent to Sweden to escape the Nazis. They expect to stay there six months, until their parents can flee to Amsterdam; then all four will go to America. But as the world war intensifies, the girls remain, each with her own host family, on a rugged island off the western coast of Sweden.
“Nellie quickly settles in to her new surroundings. She’s happy with her foster family and soon favors the Swedish language over her native German. Not so for Stephie, who finds it hard to adapt; she feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who’s as cold and unforgiving as the island itself. Her main worry, though, is her parents—and whether she will ever see them again.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/faraway-island-annika-thor/1100169072?ean=9780375844959
Winner, Batchelder Award, 2010
Honor Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2010
USBBY “Outstanding International Books” List – Grades 6-8, 2010
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.4; 680L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2011). The lily pond. (L. Schenck, Trans.). New York: Delacorte Press.
“A year after Stephie Steiner and her younger sister, Nellie, left Nazi-occupied Vienna, Stephie has finally adapted to life on the rugged Swedish island where her she now lives. But more change awaits Stephie: her foster parents have allowed her to enroll in school on the mainland, in Goteberg. Stephie is eager to go. Not only will she be pursuing her studies, she’ll be living in a cultured city again—under the same roof as Sven, the son of the lodgers who rented her foster parents’ cottage for the summer.
“Five years her senior, Sven dazzles Stephie with his charm, his talk of equality, and his anti-Hitler sentiments. Stephie can’t help herself—she’s falling in love. As she navigates a sea of new emotions, she also grapples with what it means to be beholden to others, with her constant worry about what her parents are enduring back in Vienna, and with the menacing spread of Nazi ideology, even in Sweden. In these troubled times, her true friends, Stephie discovers, are the ones she least expected.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lily-pond-annika-thor/1103058580?ean=9780385740401
Honor Book, Batchelder Award, 2012
Age Range: 9-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.7; 740L
Teacher’s Guide:
Vande Velde, V. (1998). A coming evil. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm022/97032196.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0736/97032196-b.html
“Lisette Beaucaire was angry when her parents sent her away from Paris that September day in 1940. And although she knew that with the Nazis occupying the city she’d be safer at her Aunt Josephine's farm in the Dordogne valley, Lisette resented her ‘exile’. She’d miss her friends and the excitement of being thirteen and starting a new school. Instead she’d have nothing to do but amuse her little cousin Cecile.
“That’s what Lisette thought, but she soon found out that she wasn’t the only visitor at the farmhouse. And then she encountered Gerard, a visitor from a long time ago, who proved to be a valiant ally at a crucial moment for the people who lived in the farmhouse.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/coming-evil-vivian-vande-velde/1100303583?ean=9780618747818
Age Range: 10-14 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.2; 740L
Teacher’s Guide:
Vander Zee, R. (2013). Erika’s Story. Mankato, MN: Creative Paperbacks.
“A Jewish woman recounts how her mother was able to spare her from the horrors of the Holocaust [by being] thrown from a train headed for a Nazi death camp in 1944, raised by someone who risked her own life to save the baby’s, and finally found some peace through her own family.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/erikas-story-ruth-vander-zee/1005414971?ean=9780898128918
Age Range: 8 years & up
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.1
Teacher’s Guide:
Voorhoeve, A. C. (2012). My family for the war. (T. Reichel, Trans.). New York: Dial Books.
“At the start of World War II, ten-year-old Franziska Mangold is torn from her family when she boards the Kindertransport in Berlin, the train that secretly took nearly 10,000 children out of Nazi territory to safety in England. Taken in by strangers who soon become more like family than her real parents, Frances (as she is now known) courageously pieces together a new life for herself because she doesn't know when or if she’ll see her true family again. Against the backdrop of war-torn London, Frances struggles with questions of identity, family, and love, and these experiences shape her into a dauntless, charming young woman.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-family-for-the-war-anne-c-voorhoeve/1104340625?ean=9780803733602
Winner, Batchelder Award, 2013
ALSC “Top Titles for Tweens”, 2013
Age Range: 12-17 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 6.2; 900L
Teacher’s Guide:
Vos, I. (1991). Hide and seek. (T. Edelstein & I. Smidt, Trans.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hm021/90004980.html
“A young Jewish girl living in Holland tells of her experiences during the Nazi occupation, her years in hiding, and the aftershock when the war finally ends.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hide-and-seek-ida-vos/1000404889?ean=9780140369083
Age Range: 9-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.6
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (1995). Anna is still here. (T. Edelstein & I. Smidt, Trans.). New York: Puffin.
“Thirteen-year-old Anna, who was a ‘hidden child’ in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II, gradually learns to deal with the realities of being a survivor.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/anna-is-still-here-ida-vos/1001879641?ean=9780140369090
Age Range: 9-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.3; 420L
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2000). The key is lost. (T. Edelstein, Trans.). New York: HarperCollins.
“What would it be like to lose your home, your family, and even your name?
“Eva and Lisa Zilverstijn find out. When they go into hiding from the Nazis during World War II, they lose everything but each other.
“As they move from attic to attic, Eva and Lisa must rely on their courage, their imaginations, and the compassion of strangers to survive.
“Based on the author’s own experiences in Wartime Holland, The Key is Lost is a moving, understated story about the will to live and how two girls triumph against tremendous odds.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/key-is-lost-ida-vos/1002943621?ean=9780688162832
Winner, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2000
Booklist’s Best of the Year Holocaust Books for Youth, _____
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.6; 500L
Teacher’s Guide:
Watts, I. N. (1998). Good-bye Marianne. Plattsburgh, NY: Tundra Books.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/random058/97062177.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/random043/97062177.html
“As autumn turns toward winter in 1938 Berlin, life for Marianne Kohn, a young Jewish girl, begins to crumble. First there was the burning of the neighborhood shops. Then her father, a mild-mannered bookseller, must leave the family and go into hiding. No longer allowed to go to school or even sit in a café, Marianne’s only comfort is her beloved mother. Things are bad, but could they get even worse? Based on true events, this fictional account of hatred and racism speaks volumes about both history and human nature.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/good-bye-marianne-irene-n-watts/1111618916?ean=9780887764455
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.5
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2000). Remember me: A search for refuge in wartime Britain. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Tundra Books.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/random052/00708860.html
Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/samples/random043/00708860.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/random048/00708860.html
“Young Marianne is one of the lucky ones. She has escaped on one of the first Kindertransport organized to take Jewish children out of Germany to safety in Britain.
“At first Marianne is desperate. She does not speak English, she is not welcome in her sponsors’ home, and most of all she misses her mother terribly. As the months pass, she realizes that she cannot control the circumstances around her. She must rely on herself if she is to survive.
“In this exciting companion to Good-bye Marianne, Irene N. Watts has created a memorable character, and a story that is ultimately about hope, not war. Based on true events, this fictional account of hatred and racism speaks volumes about history and human nature.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/remember-me-irene-n-watts/1112556286?ean=9780887765193
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2000
Age Range: 10 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.5
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2002). Finding Sophie. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Tundra Books.
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bios/random054/2002101143.html
Sample text http://www.loc.gov/catdir/samples/random041/2002101143.html
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/random041/2002101143.html
“Sophie Mandel was only seven years old when she arrived in London on the first Kindertransport from Germany. She has grown up with a friend of her parents, a woman she calls Aunt Em, and despite the war and its deprivations, she has made a good life for herself in England with her foster mother. She has even stopped thinking about the parents she left behind. Now the war is over, and fourteen-year-old Sophie is faced with a terrible dilemma. Where does she belong?
“In this, the third book about the characters introduced in Good-bye Marianne and Remember Me, Irene N. Watts explores the themes of friendship, family, and the nature of love. Finding Sophie is sure to become a favorite.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/finding-sophie-irene-n-watts/1100410801?ean=9780887766138
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Older Readers, 2002
Age Range: 10 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.1
Teacher’s Guide:
Whitney, K. A. (2009). The other half of life: A novel based on the true story of the MS St. Louis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
“In May of 1939, the SS St. Francis sets sail from Germany, carrying German Jews and other refugees away from Hitler’s regime. The passengers believe they are bound for freedom in Cuba and eventually the United States, but not all of them are celebrating. Fifteen-year-old Thomas is anxious about his parents and didn’t want to leave Germany: his father, a Jew, has been imprisoned and his mother, a Christian, is left behind, alone. Fourteen-year-old Priska has her family with her, and she’s determined to enjoy the voyage, looking forward to their new lives.
“Based on the true story of the MS St. Louis, this historical young adult novel imagines two travelers and the lives they may have lived until events, and immigration laws, conspired to change their fates. Kim Ablon Whitney did meticulous research on the voyage of the St. Louis to craft her compelling and moving story about this little-known event in history."
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/other-half-of-life-kim-ablon-whitney/1100292150?ean=9780375844225
Notable Book, Sydney Taylor Award – Teen Readers, 2010
National Jewish Book Award – Children’s & Young Adult Literature, 2009
“Jewish Book Month” List for Teens, 2009
Age Range: 12-15 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.0; HL730L
Teacher’s Guide:
Wiesel, E. (1961). Dawn. (F. Frenaye, Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang.
“Elisha is a young Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor, and an Israeli freedom fighter in British-controlled Palestine; John Dawson is the captured English officer he will murder at dawn in retribution for the British execution of a fellow freedom fighter. The nightlong wait for morning and death provides Dawn, Elie Wiesel’s ever more-timely novel, with its harrowingly taut, hour-by-hour narrative. Caught between the manifold horrors of the past and the troubling dilemmas of the present, Elisha wrestles with guilt, ghosts, and ultimately God as he waits for the appointed hour and his act of assassination. Dawn is an eloquent meditation on the compromises, justifications, and sacrifices that human beings make when they murder other human beings.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dawn-elie-wiesel/1100935874?ean=9780809037728
Age Range:
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.4; 740L
Teacher’s Guides:
(BookRags Summary) BN ID: 2940013174474
(Essential Writer’s Guide) ISBN-13: 9781286814055
_____. (1962). The accident. (A. Borchardt, Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang.
“A young journalist steps off a curb and into the path of a speeding taxicab. Is it an accident? Or has a tormented past driven Eliezer, a survivor of the German death camps, to attempt suicide? Gravely injured, torn between choosing life and death, Eliezer relives the horrors of Auschwitz, remembers the tragedy of a child forced into prostitution by the Nazis, and puzzles over his passionate affair with a beautiful woman he cannot love. Told with the true voice of a witness, The Accident portrays one man's quest to understand the catastrophe that befell him, his family, and his people.
“Was an Auschwitz survivor's accident actually a suicide attempt? This is the gripping story of one man's quest to understand the catastrophe that befell him.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-accident-elie-wiesel/1001867293?ean=9780374523114
NOTE: This title was later published as Day in the Night Trilogy
Age Range:
Reading Level: AR Level – 5.4; 480L
Teacher’s Guides:
(BookRags Summary) BN ID: 2940014286640
(Essential Writer’s Guide) ISBN-13: 9781286814055
Wild, M. (1991). Let the celebrations begin!New York: Orchard Books
“A child, who remembers life at home before life in a concentration camp, makes toys with the women to give to the other children at the very special party they are going to have when the soldiers arrive to liberate the camp.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/let-the-celebrations-begin-margaret-wild/1114221204?ean=9780763670139
Age Range: 7-10 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 3.7
Teacher’s Guide:
Williams, L. E. (1996). Behind the bedroom wall. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.
“In 1939, ten-year-old Korinna Rehme becomes a member of her local Jungmaedel, a Nazi youth group. She believes that Hitler is helping the world by dealing with what he calls the ‘Jewish problem’. When Korinna discovers that her parents are secretly hiding Jews in their house and helping them to escape the city, she is shocked. And her loyalties are put to an extreme test when a neighbor tips off the Gestapo.
“Thirteen-year-old Korinna must decide whether to report her parents to her Hitler youth group when she discovers that they are hiding Jews in a secret space behind Korinna’s bedroom wall.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/behind-the-bedroom-wall-laura-e-williams/1102043145?ean=9781571316585
Age Range: 10-13 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.4; 660L
Teacher’s Guide:
Wiseman, E. (2002). My canary yellow star. Plattsburgh, NY: Tundra Books.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0611/2001086828-d.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0611/2001086828-b.html
“The Second World War was a time of terrible injustices. It was also a time of incredible bravery. My Canary Yellow Star is the remarkable story of one of the last century’s greatest heroes, Raoul Wallenberg, who was responsible for saving as many as 100,000 lives.
“Young Marta’s life in Budapest has been shattered by the war. First, her school closes. Jews are prohibited from attending classes. Then her father, along with other able-bodied men, is arrested and sent to work digging ditches on the eastern front. The family’s apartment is confiscated, and Marta, her brother, and her mother must share cramped space with her aunt and cousin. Food, warm clothing, and any kind of personal freedom have all but vanished.
“Jewish life becomes more and more confined as the old people, women, and children are forced into the ghetto. From there, the next step is the waiting cattle cars and the concentration camps. But Marta’s family is lucky. They are numbered among those who could be saved by the efforts of Raoul Wallenberg.
“Among the few points of hope was this extraordinary Swedish diplomat. Raoul Wallenberg issued papers to thousands of Jews, declaring them to be Swedish citizens. Wallenberg was questioned by the Russians after the war and disappeared, possibly to die in Siberia. An international movement has been in place for decades to press Russia for news of his fate. Although details of his death remain a mystery, he has come to represent courage and justice in the face of great evil.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/my-canary-yellow-star-eva-wiseman/1100410802?ean=9780887765339
Age Range: 8-12 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.6
Teacher’s Guide:
_____. (2006). Kanada. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Tundra Books.
Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0709/2005910619-d.html
Contributor biographical information http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0709/2005910619-b.html
“Kanada. The name meant untold riches and promise to Jutka, a young Hungarian girl who was captivated by stories of a vast, majestic country where people were able to breathe free of hatred and prejudice. Freedom was in short supply, but hatred was everywhere in Hungary as hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps during the last year of WWII. Jutka, her friends, and her family are sent to Auschwitz.
“In that hellish place, there was another Kanada. It was the ironic name given to the storehouse at Auschwitz where the possessions — clothing and jewelry — stripped from the victims were deposited, and where Jutka was put to work.
“The war may have ended, but it did not end the suffering of many of the inmates of concentration camps. Many had no homes to go to, and if they did, they were not welcome. Hundreds went back to Poland and were murdered. Famished, diseased, and homeless, they lived in the hopelessness of camps, wondering if they could ever find a home in the world. Some went to Israel, but for Jutka there was only one dream left her — the dream of a country full of hope, where she would no longer have to live in fear.”
summary from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kanada-eva-wiseman/1100410587?ean=9780887767296
Age Range: 10 years
Reading Level:
Teacher’s Guide:
Yolen, J. (1988). The devil’s arithmetic. New York: Viking Vestral.
“Hannah resents stories of her Jewish heritage and of the past until, when opening the door during a Passover Seder, she finds herself in Poland during World War II where she experiences the horrors of a concentration camp, and learns why she – and we – need to remember the past.”
summary from http://catalog2.loc.gov/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=287273&recCount=25&recPointer=4&bibId=1020181
National Jewish Book Award – Children’s Literature, 1989
Age Range: 10-14 years
Reading Level: AR Level – 4.6; 730L
Teacher’s Guides:
(BookRags Summary) BN ID: 2940013372764
(BookRags Lesson Plan) BN ID: 2940014136600
(Essential Writer’s Guide) ISBN-13: 9781286285343
(Novel-Ties Study Guide) ISBN-13: 9780881226973
(LitPlans on CD) ISBN-13: 9781583372395
(Novel Units) ISBN-13: 9781581306859
(Puzzle Pack) ISBN-13: 9781602493087