Holocaust literature for younger children, by Y S Lee

"Who was Hitler?" asked my seven-year-old, a couple of weeks ago. It was 7.30 on a weekend morning.



It turns out he'd been inspecting the books on my desk. I ought to have seen this coming: I've amassed heaps of primary and secondary sources about the Second World War over the past three years. It just never dawned on me that he'd go browsing through the unglamorous adult books in the study when there are so many age-appropriate books for him in nearly every other room of the house.



Over the past two weeks, taking my cues from S's direct questions, we've spent quite a few hours talking about race, racism, Hitler, war, conscience and resistance. It's been hard: the most complicated, painful thing I've had to explain to him thus far. When I defined racism his first response was, "That's rude." He was so innocent that he didn't have the vocabulary for talking about hate. I had to correct him: "No, that's evil." Yet he's capable of morally complex questions, among them: "Why do people go to war?", "Why did Hitler believe what he did?" and "What would you have done if you lived in Germany and Hitler said you had to be a soldier?"



S's questions also uncovered a cultural fault line in our house. My husband grew up in 1970s/80s England. When he thinks of Hitler, he thinks about the Battle of Britain, rationing, conscription. For him, the war is recent and local and deeply personal. Because I grew up in Canada, Hitler means the Holocaust, the Jewish diaspora and the Allied war effort. For me, the war is frightening but also distinctly historical, definitely elsewhere. S's three-word question has really underscored for me that while our children are biracial, they are also inheriting (at least) three cultures.



We will get to the Battle of Britain and British military history. We will also get to the Pacific War. But for now, our first priority is to introduce the Holocaust without too many nightmares, both literal and figurative.



When I began looking for children's books about the Holocaust, most seemed written for middle-grade or young adult readers. I wasn't even sure there existed such a thing as Holocaust literature for younger children. It was only when I began asking, not googling, that titles began to pop up (hurray for people, not search engines!). The list below is drawn from the generous, well-read brains of bookseller Rachel E. L. King, librarians Eugenia Beh and Paige McGeorge, authors Robin Stevenson and Jill Bryant, book blogger Rebecca Herman, my aunt Cynthia Krause, and a couple of Facebook friends who like to keep a low profile.



Here's a list of picture-book titles thus far. Titles with asterisks are the ones I've read, thanks to the Kingston public library, and for those I include my notes in italics.



Picture books about the Holocaust

*Adams, Simon. World War II (Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness series). Straight-up military history with excellent photographs. Middle-grade. Will save for a couple of years.

*Borden, Louise and Allan Drummond. The Journey That Saved Curious George: The True Wartime Escape of Margret & H. A. Rey. Primarily for committed fans of the Reys. The story is diffuse and children will need a firm grasp of the events of the War in order to make sense of how the Reys' journeys fit into it.

Bunting, Eve. Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust.

Deedy, Carmen Agra and Henri Sorenson. The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark.

Elvgren, Jennifer and Fabio Santomauro. The Whispering Town.

Hesse, Karen and Wendy Watson. The Cats in Krasinki Square.



Johnston, Tony and Ron Mazellan. The Harmonica.

*Kacer, Kathy and Gillian Newland. The Magician of Auschwitz. Based on a true story. Ideally, readers will have a solid understanding of the Holocaust and concentration camps before beginning this book.

Mochizuki, Ken and Dom Lee. Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story.

Oppenheim, Shulamith Levy and Ronald Himler. The Lily Cupboard: A Story of the Holocaust.

*Polacco, Patricia. The Butterfly. An effective introduction to the Resistance. Heavy-handed at times.

Rappaport, Doreen and Emily Arnold McCully. The Secret Seder.



*Rubin, Susan Goldman and Bill Farnsworth. Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto. A deft and suitably complex introduction to the concepts of the Holocaust and the Resistance, and my first choice to read with my son. The diction is high and a seven-year-old will need help understanding the ramifications of some statements.

*Ruelle, Karen Gray and Deborah Durland Desaix. The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust. I had very high hopes but was ultimately disappointed by how fragmentary and unverifiable most of the anecdotes were in this book. Again, the diction is too high for the average picture-book reader.

*Spielman, Gloria and Manon Gauthier. Marcel Marceau: L'enfance d'un mime. Originally published in English as Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime. I read the French edition, so cannot comment on the English text. A sound introduction to the Resistance through the framework of Marceau's early life.

*Tryszynska-Frederick, Luba, Michelle R. McCann and Ann Marshall. Luba: The Angel of Bergen-Belsen. A powerful story that requires a sound understanding of the War and concentration camps to be comprehensible. Includes many quotations from Luba Tryszynska-Frederick, which are less effective for children because of how formal her language is.

*Ungerer, Tomi. Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear. A nice conceit, but odd to my eyes because it places the German Aryan boy's experiences at the centre of the story. The illustrations depict a black American soldier as deeply simian. Can't recommend this one.

*Upjohn, Rebecca and Renné Benoit. The Secret of the Village Fool. Based on the true story of a village outcast who sheltered a family in his root cellar. Simple and moving, with a lovely coda about the family members who survived the war.

Wiviott, Meg and Josee Bisaillon. Benno and the Night of Broken Glass.





This list is a work-in-progress and I'm still reading. If you have picture-book recommendations for me, please do leave them in the comments. And thank you!

A History of Violence, by Y S Lee

A couple of months ago at the launch party for Rivals in the City, I read aloud a scene that takes place outside Newgate Prison. The year is 1860. A wooden scaffold has been built outside the prison gates, as it was before each public execution. The hangman, William Calcraft, is testing the gallows and trapdoor to ensure that they work. And the crowd is eagerly, boisterously, anticipating the day’s entertainment. All this is historically attested.

The human face of Victorian execution, William Calcraft, ca 1870. Image via wikipedia.

In the scene, I add a detail featuring ragged children “playing Calcraft”: taking turns pretending to be executioner and condemned. I invented this game, and have never formally researched “macabre children’s games, past and present” (although now that I’ve typed that phrase, it sounds like a fascinating topic). But the idea of the game rings true for me. Games of the imagination are how children process the world around them, and how they imbibe their culture. In my novel, the game of “Calcraft” has several functions: it’s a means of including children in the Victorian streetscape; a way of shifting and blending perspectives of the execution-day milieu; and, of course, a comment on the idea of a public execution in general.

West view of Newgate Prison in the mid-nineteenth century. Image via wikipedia.

After I’d read this scene aloud, one of my listeners expressed concern about the scene. Was it, he asked, appropriate to explore violence and death in a book that was written for children? Didn’t it glamorize violence and death, to see it represented in fiction? He was talking about the contemporary young adults to whom my book is marketed, but I wonder if the presence of children in the Newgate scene is what triggered his very real anxiety. It was an earnest question and I attempted to answer it with the seriousness it deserved. The party was hectic, though, and I compressed my response into a couple of brief points. Now, I think it’s time to answer the question more fully.

So is it, in fact, appropriate to explore death and violence in children’s literature? My first instinct at the party was to cite historical realism. During the Victorian era, people were much more pragmatic about death and suffering. Infant mortality was much higher than it is now; adult life expectancy was shorter. A death in the household also meant a corpse laid out in the parlour or spare bedroom. And in many cases, the women of the family washed and dressed that corpse themselves. The Victorians were less squeamish about death in general. People didn’t spay or neuter their pets; they simply drowned the unwanted litters. In Wuthering Heights, Hareton Earnshaw famously “hang[s] a litter of puppies from the chair-back in the doorway”. The shocking part of the scene is not the puppies’ deaths, but the fact that their suffering is a form of entertainment for Hareton. But remember: in Emily Bronte’s vision, even Hareton Earnshaw, Animal Sadist, is redeemable. With Cathy Linton’s love and support, it becomes possible to imagine a somewhat happy ending for Wuthering Heights.

Still, the defense of historical realism only takes us so far. After all, history contains an endless amount of truly gruesome detail. How do we decide which of those bits belong in historical fiction for young people? Let’s go back to human developmental principles. Children learn about death in bits and fragments, starting in toddlerhood. By the time they are eight years old, they are “consistent in showing adult ideas of death”. So the idea of death – with variations according to age and circumstance – is a normal part of children’s understanding. I’d go a step further, here: if a novel like Rivals in the City (which is written for teens) deliberately downplays the existence of death, it’s insulting the intelligence of its readers.

Knowing this, perhaps we can agree to acknowledge historically realistic deaths. But what about violence, and the much-feared “glamorization” of violence? Once again, let’s think about real, present-day children. Children understand violence because they are human beings. They negotiate conflict from toddlerhood. They can act violently towards others. They hear about violence on the news. They see instances of injustice all around them. The real question here is, What do they do with all this experience and all this unformed knowledge?

At this point, we must return to the specific scene or image that prompts the question. Is it an image or description of violence on the news, presented without context or consequence? I imagine that would be haunting, confusing, and possibly traumatic. Is it a video game, in which the hero-player is rewarded for acts of violence? In that case, I see how that trivializes the gravity of violent acts. In my novel, however, the threat of violence is mediated by a heroine, Mary Quinn. She is a former victim of violence who understands its impact. She has strong feelings about the uses and abuses of power. She offers readers a thoughtful perspective on the violence of her culture, and how to resist it.

If anything, I’d argue that this kind of ethically grounded violence is essential to children’s literature, and to the project of learning about the world and about oneself. I’m proud to be part of a long tradition of children’s authors who imagine the world as fully as possible, as humanly as possible, as respectfully as possible.

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Y S Lee blogs every Wednesday at www.yslee.com.