A Faraway Island by Annika Thor

The Holocaust has always been a part of history that has absolutely fascinated me. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that this is set during the Nazi occupation in Europe. 12 year old Stephie and her 8 year old sister are two Jewish sisters who are sent from Vienna to Sweden to escape the Nazi’s. It’s only supposed to be for six months, but s the war intensifies, Stephie is not sure she will ever see her parents again couple that with having a hard time adjusting to her new life and you have a heartfelt story that many young girls can relate to. This book brought to light a different part of the Holocaust that you don’t always think about and that is the displacement of kids. Thor did a wonderful job of making Stephie come to life. You could really see and feel her angst that comes with being a young girl of that age. The only weakness that I saw and it’s more personal than anything was that the ending left a lot up in the air and this was a story that I would have liked to have seen a definitive ending. However, because of the ending, you could have students continue the story or create an ending!

A Book by Mordicai Gerstein

This was another book that I wasn’t expecting. The premise is when the book closes all of the characters are asleep because it’s dark, yet when it’s opened al of the characters wake up. A little girl can’t decide what her story is, so she goes from page to page throughout the whole book, trying to find her story. The neatest thing about this book is the perspective. As you are looking at the pages, it looks like you are actually looking down into their world. At one point they even make a reference to it. Though this book has minimal text, it’s fun to examine the various pages and read the little words and conversation bubbles taking place between characters. This allows you to see things that you might have missed had there been a lot of text. You could use this book to teach or introduce elementary kids to perspective in any content area.