Welcome to the Blog of Hope and Remembrance!

Greetings and Salutations!

Welcome to my readers' advisory blog 'Hope and Remembrance' - the blog that promotes children's literature and online resources that commemorates that Holocaust.

Why the Holocaust? In recognising the United Nation's International Day of Commemoration in Memory of Victims of the Holocaust, I wanted to find resources suitable for children, that could educate and inform, without being too detailed and upsetting.

In doing this, my blog is designed is to be super user friendly for children! Instead of a proper annotated bibliography, my reviews are ranked according recommended reading ages - the youngest start at the top and the oldest at the bottom.

If you see a word that looks like this click on the link! It could take you a website or it could give you the meaning of a really hard word.

Why is it important to remember the Holocaust? In total, 11 million lives were lost. 6 million of those were Jewish - others died because they were disabled, mentally ill or disagreed with what Hitler and the Nazis were doing - and these are only a couple of examples.

It is important to remember why people lost their lives and we can only hope and pray that this history does not repeat itself.

I hope you find this blog useful.  

Best wishes,
Phillippa 

The Cats of Krasinski Square by Karen Hesse, illustrated by Wendy Watson

The Cats in Krasinski Square is based on a true event that took place in 1942. This first person narrative, told in verse, is a story about a young girl, and her sister, who become involved with the Jewish resistance’s plan to smuggle food into the Warsaw Ghetto. But once the Gestapo hear of this plan, the girl and her sister have to outsmart them, and the stray cats in Warsaw play an important role.

Genre: Junior Picture Book

Reading level: 7 years +

Publication details: New York: Scholastic Press, 2004

Star of Fear, Star of Hope by Jo Hoestlandt, illustrated by Johanna Kang

This picture book memoir takes place in the North of France in 1942, during the Nazi occupation of France. It’s Helen’s birthday, and her best friend, Lydia, is sleeping over to celebrate. When the family learn from a Jewish woman, desperate to go into hiding, that the Nazis are arresting Jews, Lydia begs Helen’s parents to take her home, much to Helen’s anger. They never see each other again.

Genre: Junior Picture Book
Reading level: 7 years +
Publisher details: New York: Walker, 1993

Once by Morris Gleitzman

The first book in a trilogy, Once is set in Poland in 1942. After witnessing the Nazis burning all of the Jewish books in his catholic orphanage, Felix escapes to warn his parents, who are Jewish booksellers. Accompanied by Zelda, an orphan, Felix discovers that they are in serious danger and that his parent’s problems are worse than he imagined. Told through the eyes of a child, Once shows the kinds of horrors that occurred under the Nazi regime, without revealing graphic details.

Genre: Junior fiction  
Reading level: 8 years +    
Publisher details: Camberwell, Victoria: Penguin, 2005

Blogger's note: Like the sound of this book? Why not check out the audio excerpt posted under the Recommended Resources link of this blog?

Anne Frank by Josephine Poole, illustrated by Angela Barrett

Best known for her written accounts of her family’s life in hiding from the Nazis, Anne Frank is a pictorial biography that introduces younger readers to the girl behind her diary. Anne Frank looks at her family’s life before, and after, the Nazis invaded Amsterdam, and concludes with her family’s capture in 1944. An excellent choice for younger children who are too young to read The Diary of Anne Frank.

Genre: Junior Nonfiction
Reading level: 8 years +
Publisher details: London: Hutchinson, 2005

The Search by Eric Heuvel, Ruud van der Rol and Lies Schippers

Esther relives her experiences as a Jewish girl in hiding after her parents had been sent to a concentration camp in Amsterdam during the Holocaust in 1940. Wanting to know what happened in the events leading up to her parent’s deaths, Esther, with the help of her grandson Daniel, manages to track down Bob Carter, a family friend, who was sent to Auschwitz with her parents. 

Genre: Junior Graphic Novel
Reading Level: 9 years +
Publisher Details:  New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2009

Hana's Suitcase: A True Story by Karen Levine

 In March 2000, the Children’s Holocaust Education Centre in Tokyo received a suitcase from the Auschwitz Museum for its exhibition.  Written on the suitcase was a name, Hana Brady, the date 16 May 1931, and the word Waisenkind (German for orphan).  Armed with the little information she has, the Education Centre’s curator, Fumiko Ishioka, embarks on a year-long journey that takes her all the way to the Czech Republic to discover Hana’s story. 

A picture of the suitcase given to the Children's Holocaust Museum in Tokyo

Genre: Junior Nonfiction
Reading level: 10 years +
Publisher details: Morton Grove, Illinois: Albert Whitman, 2003

Six Million Paper Clips: The Making of a Children's Holocaust Memorial by Peter W. Schroeder and Dagmar Schroeder-Hildebrande

The class of Whitwell Middle School wished to commemorate the lives lost during the Holocaust. After learning the significance of the paper clip in Norway during the German invasion, the students had their goal: to collect 6 million paper clips – one for the life of each Jewish person lost. What started out as a voluntary after-school project on diversity and tolerance turned out to be a memorial project that involved the community in Whitwell, Tennessee. 

Genre: Junior Nonfiction
Reading Level: 10 years +
Publisher Details: Minneapolis: Kar-Ben Pubishing, 2004

Blogger's note: A movie about this project was released by Miramax in 2004. Check out the Paperclips movie trailor under the recommended resources link of this blog!

The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartiletti

On 27 October 1942 17 year old Helmut Hübener is awaiting his execution for distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets to the citizens of Hamburg. Based on a true story, Hübener, a member of the Hilter Youth and the stepson of a highly respected Nazi, relives the events that drove him, and his friends, Karl-Heinz Schnibbe and Rudi Wobbe, to defy the Nazi regime. Bartoletti’s fast-paced, action-packed narrative is woven together by official records and interviews with Helmüt’s surviving friends.

Genre: Junior Fiction
Reading Level: 11 years +
Publisher Details: New York: Scholastic Press, 2008

T4: a Novel in Verse by Ann Clare LeZotte

T4 is set in a rural town in Germany in 1939. The Nazis have launched their Tiergartenstrasse (T4) programme, where any mentally ill or disabled people are killed. To ensure her survival, Paula Beckett, a 13 year old girl who suffers from deafness, is forced to go into hiding. A moving novel, told in verse, that chronicles Paula’s life before, and after, the T4 programme.

Genre: Junior Fiction
Reading level: 11 years +
Publisher details: Boston: Houton Mifflin Company, 2008

The Holocaust by Sean Sheehan

Providing a comprehensive overview of the Holocaust, Sheehan’s book documents the course of the Holocaust under the Nazi regime. Initially examining the role that religion plays in anti-Semitic behaviour, Sheehan discusses the instances that led to the Nazi Party to come to power, the laws passed by the Nazi party to persecute Jews, the creation of concentration camps, resistance to the Holocaust and examines how the Nazis were defeated.

Genre: Junior Nonfiction
Reading level: 12 years +
Publisher details: London: Franklin-Watts, 2007