The Boy on the Wooden Box

The Boy on the Wooden Box
Author: Leon Leyson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2013-08-29
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1471119939

Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow. Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, a man named Oskar Schindler, who saved Leon Leyson's life, and the lives of his mother, his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory - a list that became world renowned: Schindler's List. This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler's List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Most notable is the lack of rancour, the lack of venom, and the abundance of dignity in Mr Leyson's telling. The Boy on the Wooden Boxis a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you've ever read.

My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List
Author: Joshua M. Greene
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 85
Release: 2019-12-26
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1338593803

The astonishing true story of a girl who survived the Holocaust thanks to Oskar Schindler, of Schindler's List fame. Rena Finder was only eleven when the Nazis forced her and her family -- along with all the other Jewish families -- into the ghetto in Krakow, Poland. Rena worked as a slave laborer with scarcely any food and watched as friends and family were sent away. Then Rena and her mother ended up working for Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who employed Jewish prisoners in his factory and kept them fed and healthy. But Rena's nightmares were not over. She and her mother were deported to the concentration camp Auschwitz. With great cunning, it was Schindler who set out to help them escape. Here in her own words is Rena's gripping story of survival, perseverance, tragedy, and hope. Including pictures from Rena's personal collection and from the time period, this unforgettable memoir introduces young readers to an astounding and necessary piece of history.

Henry's Freedom Box

Henry's Freedom Box
Author: Ellen Levine
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2016-03-29
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1338082655

A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist. Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday -- his first day of freedom.

Holidate

Holidate
Author: Monica Murphy
Publisher: Dating
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2019-10-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781945522215

Candice Gaines loves Christmas. Not only does she bask in the twinkling lights, sing Christmas carols and go crazy with the decorations, she's also in the giving spirit, donating much of her time and wealth to various charities in the local area. Charlie Sullivan despises Christmas. Though it keeps his family afloat, considering they own Sullivan Family Christmas Tree Farm, the main provider for Christmas trees on the Monterey peninsula. He'd much rather work among the trees versus have to deal with people. But Charlie's parents are taking on more philanthropic projects-and as their oldest child, they want him to be their official public representative. He just has to play nice and convince everyone he's not a total holiday hater. When Charlie's mom asks Candice to accompany him to a variety of holiday parties and events, she reluctantly agrees. She thinks Charlie is a big ol' Grinch, but is determined to change his mindset and help him spread Christmas cheer. Charlie finds Candice is too chatty, too sweet, too much. Do people like her really exist? Why yes, yes they do. The more time they spend together-along with a few kisses under the mistletoe-the more they start to like each other. Hopefully Charlie can convince Candice he doesn't have a heart that's two sizes too small before the ball drops on New Year's Eve.

Somewhere There Is Still a Sun

Somewhere There Is Still a Sun
Author: Michael Gruenbaum
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2017-04-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 144248487X

When the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia in 1941, twelve-year-old Michael and his family are deported from Prague to the Terezin concentration camp, where his mother's will and ingenuity keep them from being transported to Auschwitz and certain death.

The Box in the Closet

The Box in the Closet
Author: Margaret Singleton
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2011-09-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1426990022

This powerful and unusual story contrasts The Bicknells, a wealthy and influential family in Rosedale, Toronto, Ontario, into which I was born out of wedlock, with a farm couple from near Brockville, Ontario who adopted me in 1935. At the age of sixteen I began to feel unsettled and lost. Eighteen years later I finally acted on that feeling and began the search for my lost parents. Using documents I found in a box in the closet of my adoptive mother after her death, I have retrieved the moment when a sleek limousine emerged from the dust of a gravel road delivering me to my new parents. The book follows that limousine back as I searched for my birth mother, taking me into mystery, intrigue and cover-up by the legal system but bringing me finally to a supper dance in the Crystal Ballroom of the historic King Edward Hotel in Toronto, where by chance, my birth parents were reunited. The memoir is a story of loss and recovery but it is also a story of love, strength and redemption

The Road to Rescue

The Road to Rescue
Author: Mietek Pemper
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 159051999X

“A deepening of the story” of Schindler’s List: A Holocaust survivor recounts how he extracted Nazi intel for Oskar Schindler in this moving memoir of courage and resistance (New York Times Book Review). Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List popularized the true story of a German businessman who manipulated his Nazi connections and spent his personal fortune to save 1,200 Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust. But few know those lists were made possible by a secret strategy designed by a young Polish Jew at the Płaszow concentration camp. Mietek Pemper’s compelling and moving memoir tells the true story of how Schindler’s list really came to pass. Pemper was born in 1920 into a lively and cultivated Jewish family for whom everything changed when the Germans invaded Poland. Evicted from their home, they were forced into the Krakow ghetto and, later, into the nearby camp of Płaszow where Pemper’s knowledge of the German language was put to use by the sadistic camp commandant Amon Goth. Forced to work as Goth’s personal stenographer from March 1943 to September 1944—an exceptional job for a Jewish prisoner—Pemper soon realized that he could use his position as the commandant’s private secretary to familiarize himself with the inner workings of the Nazi bureaucracy and exploit the system to his fellow detainees’ advantage. Once he gained access to classified documents, Pemper was able to pass on secret information for Schindler to compile his famous lists. After the war, Pemper was the key witness of the prosecution in the 1946 trial against Goth and several other SS officers. The Road to Rescue stands as a historically authentic testimony of one man’s unparalleled courage, wit, defiance, and bittersweet victory over the Nazi regime.

The Boy and the Box

The Boy and the Box
Author: Leila Boukarim
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9814928186

A boy sets out on a journey, full of wonder. He comes across an empty box and imagines all the things he can do with it. But when the path he is on splits, the boy must make a decision: to follow the advice of others or to follow his own heart. Specially created for readers aged 5¬–9 Excellent as a teaching tool for the six comprehension strategies: (1) making connection, (2) asking questions, inferring,(4) visualising, (5) determining importance and (6) summarising Explores the complex issues of growing up and making choices, and demonstrates the importance of being true to yourself

The Extra

The Extra
Author: Kathryn Lasky
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2013-10-08
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0763667129

Is the chance to serve as an extra for Hitler’s favorite filmmaker a chance at life — or a detour on the path to inevitable extermination? One ordinary afternoon, fifeen-year-old Lilo and her family are suddenly picked up by Hitler’s police and imprisoned as part of the "Gypsy plague." Just when it seems certain that they will be headed to a labor camp, Lilo is chosen by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to work as a film extra. Life on the film set is a bizarre alternate reality. The surroundings are glamorous, but Lilo and the other extras are barely fed, closely guarded, and kept in a locked barn when not on the movie set. And the beautiful, charming Riefenstahl is always present, answering the slightest provocation with malice, flaunting the power to assign prisoners to life or death. Lilo takes matters into her own hands, effecting an escape and running for her life. In this chilling but ultimately uplifting novel, Kathryn Lasky imagines the lives of the Gypsies who worked as extras for the real Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, giving readers a story of survival unlike any other.