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Told in 33 chapters by seven voices, Linked by Gordon Korman shares the story of a swastika that sets in motion a series of unintended consequences.  Because the administration at Chokecherry Middle School believes that information is the best antidote to the poison of prejudice, the 600 students who attend are subjected to tolerance education. Still, the swastikas continue to show up. What initially seemed to be a sick joke turns into something more sinister. The persistence dredges up 40-year-old memories of the Ku Klux Klan in Shadbush County and the Night of a Thousand Flames.  Soon, the quiet town of Chokecherry, Colorado, is madeRead More →

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With her recent autobiographical account in Out of Hiding: A Holocaust’s Survivor’s Journey to America, Ruth Gruener (aka Luncia Gamzer) tells her story of survival. Her memoir joins those stories told by other survivors of this unimaginable time in history. This was a time when anxiety turned to cold, raw fear as the Nazis burned synagogues and committed murder without regard for the sanctity of human life—a time when choice was taken, freedom was scarce, and normal took on an entirely different definition. Gruener tells of her feeling like a nonperson, “a body that took up space” (27). She describes hunger, loneliness, hiding, and aRead More →

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The fourteen true stories of survival in Hidden Like Anne Frank are emotionally charged and moving.  Editors Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis have collected incredible accounts of what it means to live in hiding, when a ticking clock can remind a survivor of the darkest days of his life. Storytellers not only reveal what it means to be Jewish, but what it means to be a survivor.  They tell of the “years of tears” and the difficulty of loss—the loss of possessions, loved ones, family bonds of affection, and one’s very identity.  At a time when people were persecuted for even looking Jewish, manyRead More →