Holocaust history includes many instances of righteous individuals who risked their lives to hide or help Jews escape the Nazis’ annihilating evil. In occupied southern Paris, the Muslim community, descended from the French colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, centered life around the Grand Mosque, a place of worship, culture, education and even health care. North African Jews living in the city maintained a neighborly relationship with their Muslim brothers, who shared physical attributes and similar cultures. These Jews could easily seek refuge at the Mosque, from which the Parisian Muslims who joined the French Resistance guided them to safety through an underground escape route. Although few documents remain, substantial evidence supports this fascinating and courageous story, notable as an example of the truly respectful and honorable rapport Muslims and Jews, living side by side, enjoyed for centuries. Realistic oil paintings complement the lengthy text, which celebrates a Muslim community whose selfless devotion to justice saved more than 1,000 lives. A must read for today’s multicultural curricula. (afterword, glossary, notes, bibliography, index) (Informational picture book. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2159-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
In a stirring picture book for older readers, Lester (Sam and the Tigers, 1996, etc.) creates meditations on the journey of Africans to slavery, on the lives of people held as slaves, and on runaways, the Civil War, and the meaning of freedom. Although these musings are both impressionistic and personal, Lester, in an introduction, demands that readers participate: ``I found myself addressing you, the reader, begging, pleading, imploring you not to be passive, but to invest soul and imagine yourself into the images.'' ``Imagination Exercise One—For White People'' asks readers to imagine being taken away in a spaceship by people whose skin color they've never seen, to a place where they are given new names and can be maimed or killed. ``Imagination Exercise Two—For African Americans'' asks readers to examine any shame they have about being the descendants of slaves. Each of Lester's deeply personal commentaries is placed opposite one of Brown's paintings, which depict in brilliant colors and sculpturally molded forms the people who were slaves and stops or landmarks on their journey to freedom. This is a teaching book: Those who seek to understand the experience of slavery will find many questions to grapple with, for the text does not flinch from the horrors of slave ships, whippings, or the selling of human flesh. As is true of Tom Feelings's The Middle Passage (1995), this book needs the key of collaboration with caring adults to understand its treasures fully. Readers who make that effort will be amply rewarded. (Picture book/nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8037-1893-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
Beller (To Hold This Ground, 1995, not reviewed, etc.) returns again to the Civil War, focusing on the heroic exploits and origins of the Union army's 535-member Irish Brigade. From Antietam—the battle that claimed the largest number of American soldiers' lives in a single day—the narrative shifts to Ireland, where the author points to the reason for the wave of emigration: starvation at home. Vibrant prose conveys a sense of urgency in the depiction of the poverty and religious persecution suffered by the Irish Catholics, especially during the years of the potato famine. The links of cause and effect that create history are neatly forged: It's no accident that the Irish chose the US, a land that had thrown off British rule, for shelter. Many of the Irish enlisted in the Union army so that they might one day use their military skills back home. The book is unflinching in its accounts of the deaths and injuries of so many of the Irish Americans defending this country; their legacy, which will be unfamiliar to most readers, receives an intelligent and thorough treatment. (b&w photos, maps, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81406-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1997
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