(2) YA Lillia's Jewish family plans to escape the Nazi threat in Warsaw for Shanghai, but when their circus is raided they're separated from Lillia's mother. Lillia starts out naive at fifteen, and DeWoskin sensitively shows her maturing and accepting the role of sole breadwinner, taking a job dancing at a club. Rich prose details 1940s Japanese-occupied Shanghai through the eyes of a first-person narrator making sense of an unfamiliar setting. Bib.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2019

(2) YA Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (1878–1942), a Jewish doctor, author, and orphanage director who famously championed children's rights and who perished at the Treblinka extermination camp. Marrin explores the man's life, with various digressions into such topics as Polish history and politics, WWII, and the Jewish diaspora. Marrin both illuminates history and provides occasional respite from the unrelenting (and often vividly described) cruelty of the Holocaust. Bib., ind.

Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2019

(3) YA Chaya is a Jewish teenage "courier" for the Akiva resistance group, sneaking in and out of Polish ghettos and delivering aid to inhabitants. After many Akiva members are killed, Chaya participates in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Though it acknowledges the horrors of the Holocaust, this book focuses more on action and adventure than most Holocaust novels. An afterword delineates real-life people and events.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax

(3) 4-6 Adapted by Mary Cronk Farrell. Irena Sendler was a Christian Polish woman who rescued thousands of Jewish children during WWII. The emotion-filled, narrative-style text includes invented dialogue and attribution of thoughts and feelings; these inserted "fly-on-the-wall" moments were "based on the archives and historical sources," and an adapter's note and copious endnotes provide details. Photographs are interspersed, adding personal faces to the horrifying history.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(2) 4-6 Translated by Laura Watkinson. Illustrated by Caryl Strzelecki. The narrator lives with his parents and sister in what becomes the Warsaw Ghetto. He finds a secret escape from the ghetto and begins smuggling food, eventually joining with Mordechai Anielewicz's organized Resistance. The prose is spare; the book's format, with text on black or white pages and plentiful ink and wash illustrations, is dramatic and will grab young readers.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2013

(4) YA Holocaust Through Primary Sources series. This series covers various aspects of the Holocaust. Interspersed throughout the historical narratives are recollections by people who were there; text boxes with handwriting font signals first-person accounts. Some stock photos and occasional pictures supplied by the witnesses add immediacy. The writing and organization of material are uneven, but the volumes are useful nonetheless. Reading list, timeline, websites. Glos., ind. Review covers these Holocaust Through Primary Sources titles: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Rescuing the Danish Jews, Saving Children from the Holocaust, Auschwitz, Kristallnacht, and Liberation.

Reviewer: Amy Kellman

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Bill Farnsworth. Disguised as a nurse, Irena Sendler covertly rescued nearly four hundred children from the Warsaw ghetto, smuggling them out in trucks, potato sacks, and coffins; teaching them Catholic prayers to disguise their origin; and finding them shelter in homes and convents. Farnsworth's dramatic oils convey the danger and urgency of Sendler's mission, which Rubin details with brisk clarity. Bib., ind.

Reviewer: Roger Sutton

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Ron Mazellan. Promising her dying father that she would help people in need, Irena Sendler joined a Polish underground organization dedicated to assisting Jewish families during the Holocaust. Rich, dark oils add weight and emotion to this story of a woman who risked her own safety to bring thousands of children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. An afterword tells more about Sendler's life.

Reviewer: Tamara DePasquale

(4) 4-6 Historical Fiction Adventures series. In 1866 Lee Chin works on the transcontinental railroad, earning money to free his sister from bondage in China (Iron). In Nazi-occupied Poland, the title character escapes the Warsaw ghetto (Simon's). Sarah Wright attempts to exonerate her father, accused of witchcraft (Devil's). The character-driven narratives can be choppy. "The Real History Behind the Story" is appended to each. Reading lists, websites. Review covers these Historical Fiction Adventures titles: The Iron Dragon, Simon's Escape, and The Devil's Door.

Reviewer: Rita Soltan

(4) 4-6 A homeless young boy joins an unruly gang of Jewish street kids. The horrors of the Holocaust don't become evident until Misha (another of Spinelli's exuberant, good-hearted protagonists) and his friends are rounded up and confined to the Warsaw ghetto. Though this novel suffers from uneven pacing and a conclusion that's unconvincing and cloying, it also contains some memorably harrowing images that will remain in the reader's mind.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2003