Review: Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler

Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler

Code Name Kingfisher
Liz Kessler
Aladdin Books
Published May 7, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Code Name Kingfisher

When Liv finds a secret box from her grandmother’s childhood she uncovers an extraordinary war-time story of bravery, betrayal and daring defiance. A story that will change Liv and her family forever…
 
Holland, 1942. The world is at war and as the Nazis’ power grows, Jewish families are in terrible danger. Twelve-year-old Mila and her older sister Hannie are sent to live with a family in another city with new identities and the strict instruction not to tell … Continue reading

Review: Tree. Table. Book. by Lois Lowry

Tree. Table. Book. by Lois Lowry covers shows a girl with square glasses on the left facing an elderly woman in glasses on the right with a tree in the background.

Tree. Table. Book.
Lois Lowry
Clarion Books
Published April 23, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Tree. Table. Book.

Everyone knows the two Sophies are best friends. One is in elementary school, and one is . . . well . . . in a little trouble of late. She’s elderly, sure, but she’s always been on her game, the best friend any girl struggling to fit in could ever have. The Sophies drink tea, … Continue reading

Review: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank

Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition
Anne Frank
EFE Books
Published May 15, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition

The Diary of a Young Girl, often known as the Anne Frank Diary, is a collection of entries from Anne Frank’s Dutch-language diary, which she recorded while a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family evacuated their house in Amsterdam and went into hiding in 1942 when Nazis occupied Holland. Anne Frank died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen detention camp in 1945 after the family was captured … Continue reading

Review: The Girl Who Sang by Estelle Nadel, Sammy Savos, and Bethany Strout

The Girl Who Sang by Estelle Nadel shows a girl standing on a grassy hill with images of soldiers, yellow stars, and a partially obscured flag behind her.

The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival
Estelle Nadel
Illustrated by Sammy Savos
Edited by Bethany Strout
Roaring Brook Press
Published January 23, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival

A heartrending graphic memoir about a young Jewish girl’s fight for survival in Nazi-occupied Poland, THE GIRL WHO SANG illustrates the power of a brother’s love, the kindness of strangers, and finding hope when facing the unimaginable.

Continue reading

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

10 Books to Read for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Top 10 Books for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Friday, January 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that date in 1945, the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated. Some of the stories listed here share the lives of some of those who were imprisoned there. Some were imprisoned at other camps. Still others fled their homes in Europe in an attempt to escape the Nazis.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is “freebie”, so I’ve chosen to share some of the books I’ve read or that are still on my reading list that feature stories based on historical events or family history. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Continue reading

Review: This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke

This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke

This Rebel Heart
Katherine Locke
Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published April 5, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About This Rebel Heart

A tale set amid the 1956 Hungarian revolution in post-WWII Communist Budapest.

In the middle of Budapest, there is a river. Csilla knows the river is magic. During WWII, the river kept her family safe when they needed it most–safe from the Holocaust. But that was before the Communists seized power. Before her parents were murdered by the Soviet police. Before Csilla knew things about her father’s legacy that she wishes she could forget.

Now Csilla keeps her head down, planning her escape from this country that … Continue reading