Lists and Suggestions for Kids

"An inspirational nonfiction novel-in-verse about Zhanna Arshanskaya, a young Ukrainian Jewish girl using the alias Anna, whose phenomenal piano-playing skills saved her life and the life of her sister, Frina, during the Holocaust--from award-winning author Susan Hood, with Zhanna's son, Greg Dawson"--

Osnat Barzani or Asenath Barzani (1590-1670) the world's first female rabbi, was born almost five hundred years ago, during a time when few girls were allowed to read. Her father was a great scholar whose house was filled with books, and she convinced him to teach her. She grew up to teach others, becoming a wise and famous scholar in her own right.

"Henrietta Szold took Queen Esther as a model and worked hard to save the Jewish people. In 1912, she founded the Jewish women's social justice organization, Hadassah. Henrietta started Hadassah determined to offer emergency medical care to mothers and children in Palestine. When WWII broke out, she rescued Jewish children from the Holocaust, and broadened Hadassah's mission to include education, youth development, and women's rights. Hadassah offers free help to all who need it and continues its mission to this day."--

"Caldecott Honoree and Sibert Medalist Peter Sís honors a man who saved hundreds of children from the Nazis. In 1938, twenty-nine-year-old Nicholas Winton saved the lives of almost 700 children trapped in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. A story he never told and that remained unknown until an unforgettable TV appearance in the 1980s reunited him with some of the children he saved. Czech-American artist, MacArthur Fellow, and Andersen Award winner Peter Sís dramatizes Winton's story in this distinctive and deeply personal picture book. He intertwines Nicky's efforts with the story of one of the children he saved-a young girl named Vera, whose family enlisted Nicky's aid when the Germans occupied their country. As the war passes and Vera grows up, she must find balance in her dual identities-one her birthright, the other her choice. Nicky & Vera is a masterful tribute to a humble man's courageous efforts to protect Europe's most vulnerable, and a timely portrayal of the hopes and fears of those forced to leave their homes and create new lives."--

"In pre-World War II Vienna, Lisa Jura was a musical prodigy who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. But when enemy forces threatened the city--particularly the Jewish people that lived there--Lisa's parents were forced to make a difficult decision. They chose to send Lisa to London for safety through the Kindertransport--a rescue effort that relocated Jewish children. As Lisa yearned to be reunited with her family while living in a home for refugee children on Willesden Lane, her music became a beacon of hope for those around her." --

"Gino Bartali pedaled across Italy for years, winning one cycling race after another, including the 1938 Tour de France. Gino became an international sports hero! But the next year, World War II began, and it changed everything. Soldiers marched into Italy. Tanks rolled down the cobbled streets of Florence. And powerful leaders declared that Jewish people should be arrested. To the entire world, Gino Bartali was merely a champion cyclist. But Gino's greatest achievement was something he never told a soul--that he secretly worked with the Italian resistance to save hundreds of Jewish men, women, and children, and others, from certain death, using the one thing no authority would question: his bicycle."--

"Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who lived during World War II, when people like her were killed just for being Jewish. Anne and her family were forced to hide in a tiny, secret space to try and survive, and Anne began keeping a diary to practice her love of writing and pass the time. In her writing, she described what life was like as a Jewish person during the war. She also wrote about her hopes, dreams, and the future she wanted when she could live a normal life again. Even though she was scared, Anne believed in the goodness of people and never gave up hope that life would get better again."--

"'They were there at the beginning of the war, but they were gone by the end. I suppose they died in the camps.' Thats all young Michael Rosen, born in England just after the end of the Second World War, was told about the six great-aunts and great-uncles who had been living in Poland or France at the beginning of that war. This wasnt enough for him. So, as an adult, he started to search. He asked relatives for any papers they might have. He read book after book. He searched online, time and again, as more information was digitized and suddenly there to be found. In a unique mix of memoir, history, and poetry, scholar and childrens literature luminary Michael Rosen explores his family history, digging up more details than he ever thought he would and sharing them with readers so that now, a lifetime after the Nazis tried to make the world forget the Rosen family and the rest of Europes Jews, his readers can do something essential: remember."--

"Wonder Woman was a groundbreaking superhero film that inspired women around the world, and its star has become a role model for many. The story of how Gal Gadot became Wonder Woman and what she has done since first picking up her shield and lasso is sure to excite readers of all ages. Written at a low reading level to appeal to even the most reluctant readers, this high-interest biography encourages independent reading through its achievable main text. Fun fact boxes, a helpful timeline, and full-color photographs add to this inspiring reading experience"--

Over the last forty years, Aaron Lansky has jumped into dumpsters, rummaged around musty basements, and crawled through cramped attics. He did all of this in pursuit of a particular kind of treasure, and he's found plenty. Lansky's treasure was any book written in Yiddish, the language of generations of European Jews. When he started looking for Yiddish books, experts estimated there might be about 70,000 still in existence. Since then, the MacArthur Genius Grant recipient has collected close to 1.5 million books, and he's finding more every day.

"While other kids played sports, Steven Spielberg was writing scripts and figuring out camera angles. He went from entertaining his Boy Scout troop with home movies to amazing audiences around the world with epic blockbusters. He has directed four of the most successful films of all time and has won two Academy Awards for Best Director. From Jaws to Lincoln, young readers and aspiring filmmakers will be fascinated by the life of this famous director"--

"With rhythmic swirls of words and pictures, Suzanne Slade and Stacy Innerst beautifully reveal just how brilliantly Gershwin reached inside his head to create his masterpiece, Rhapsody in Blue. It's a surprising and whirlwind composition of notes and sounds and one long wail of a clarinet-dazzling and daring, just like George Gershwin himself!"-- Book jacket.

"In a time when people were ruthlessly persecuted and killed, some were able to make it through alive. Whether it was thanks to lucky twists of fate or the loving sacrifices of others, they lived to tell their stories, which serve as reminders to never allow such a tragedy to happen again. These are the unbelievable true stories of six children, in their own words, of how they survived one of the darkest times in human history"--

"Her parents moved her from Austria to Tokyo, Japan before she started school. They were all rendered stateless when Nazi Germany and Austria stripped Jews of their citizenship. She graduated high school fluent in Japanese plus four other languages and went to college in America at age 15. Cut off from her parents by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and America's entry into World War II, she went years not knowing if they were alive. She returned to post-war Japan as an interpreter, found her parents, and wrote the fateful words that make her a storied feminist hero in that nation even today. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said about Beate Sirota Gordon, 'It is a rare life treat for a Supreme Court Justice to get to meet a framer of a Constitution. It is rarer indeed for that framer to have been a woman'"--

"The astonishing true story of a girl who survived the Holocaust thanks to Oskar Schindler, of Schindler's List fame. Rena Finder was only eleven when the Nazis forced her and her family -- along with all the other Jewish families -- into the ghetto in Krakow, Poland. Rena worked as a slave laborer with scarcely any food and watched as friends and family were sent away. Then Rena and her mother ended up working for Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who employed Jewish prisoners in his factory and kept them fed and healthy. But Rena's nightmares were not over. She and her mother were deported to the concentration camp Auschwitz. With great cunning, it was Schindler who set out to help them escape. Here in her own words is Rena's gripping story of survival, perseverance, tragedy, and hope. Including pictures from Rena's personal collection and from the time period, this unforgettable memoir introduces young readers to an astounding and necessary piece of history"--

In 1912, a well-known doctor and writer named Janusz Korczak designed an extraordinary orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw, Poland. Believing that children were capable of governing themselves, he encouraged the orphans to elect a parliament, run a court, and put out their own weekly newspaper. Even when Korczak was forced to move the orphanage into the Warsaw Ghetto after Hitler's rise to power, and couldn't afford to buy food and medicine for his charges, he never lost sight of his ideals. Fully committed to giving his children as much love as possible during a terrifying time, Korczak refused to abandon them. In his most beautiful and heartfelt book to date, Tomek Bogacki tells the story of a courageous man who, during one of the grimmest moments in world history, dedicated his life's work, and ultimately his life itself, to children.