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Sept. 30, 2005
Tales of endurance, bravery
Holocaust, Ethiopia and sweatshops are topics of youth books.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
If anyone thinks that being a kid is easy, they are wrong. The
Independent reviews three books targetted to readers age 10-plus
that deal with serious subject matter in an entertaining and educational
way. The stories' heroes – both real and fictional – show
courage in the face of adversity and not only survive their harsh
situations, but triumph in the end.
Survival of Holocaust
Isaac Millman is an author and illustrator who lives in New York
with his wife. Hidden Child (Douglas & McIntyre, 2005)
is the autobiographical story of his survival of the Holocaust –
written some 60 years after the fact. He was inspired to write and
illustrate about his experiences by a visit to the Dag Hammarskjöld
middle school in East Brunswick, N.J., where a relative of his was
studying the Holocaust.
"They asked me if I would be willing to tell my story to the
students," writes Millman in a press release accompanying the
book. "I had never talked in front of a large audience of my
personal experience in the war before. And I wasn't sure if I could
handle it emotionally. But I agreed. It was a first, and [it was]
very difficult.
"A week or so later, I received a package at home with a thank
you letter from the teachers and 160 others, all letters from each
of the students. The teachers wrote of the importance of telling
my experience to others, so another Holocaust will not occur. This
was the catalyst for Hidden Child."
Being an artist, Millman not only writes about how he survived the
Holocaust, but uses collages, paintings and family photos to communicate
his story. The way in which he has combined all of these elements
makes the history more tangible and vivid. The artwork is beautiful,
despite its at-times painful themes.
Prior to the beginning of the Second World War, Millman – born
Isaac Sztrymfman – and his parents lived a comfortable life
in a Paris apartment. But, after the Nazis invaded France in 1940,
when Millman was only seven years old, his father was arrested and,
soon after, so was his mother. In an attempt to save Millman, his
mother bribed a prison guard to help her son escape. This did not
work and Millman, all alone, returned to his family's apartment
building. Luckily, a woman named Héna, who was also Jewish,
helped Millman find a hiding place. After living with a family who
did not treat him well, he eventually ended up with a widow, Madame
Devolder, who protected him.
After the war, Millman found out that he had lost his parents in
the Holocaust. He was adopted by an American family and, at age
15, made his way to live in the United States on Nov. 1, 1948.
As life's irony would have it, Millman, on a visit to see Héna
in Europe, renewed his connection with her granddaughter, whom he
had met when he was 13. They fell in love and married. It is true
that sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.
Two girls in Ethiopia
Daughters of the Ark (Second Story Press, 2005) by Anna
Morgan mixes fact and fiction, relating the stories of two young
girls who each face a dangerous journey to a new land. The first
is Aleesha, a character who lives in 961 BCE – she and her
family are sent from Jerusalem to join the court of the Queen of
Sheba in Ethiopia. The second part of the story is based on real
events and a living person named Debritu, who, because of famine
and war, has to travel in the opposite direction. The girls' lives
are linked through the tale of an emerald stolen from the ancient
ark in King Solomon's Temple and brought to Ethiopia; handed down
through the generations, it comes into Debritu's care.
Storytelling has always served myriad purposes, including to entertain,
to convey history and tradition and to educate people about the
world around them. Daughters of the Ark fulfils all of these
functions. The stories of Aleesha and Debritu are exciting and it
is such a well-written novel for children that they almost won't
even notice that they're learning about the ancient African-Jewish
community known as the Betya Israel or Falashas ("Outsiders").
There is a timeline at the end of the book, as well as maps of the
ancient and contemporary regions in Africa and photos of a couple
of towns in Ethiopia and of Debritu (who changed her name to Shula)
on her first trip back to the country from Israel, where she currently
lives.
Child labor in Canada
When Zelda Freedman learned of her mother Rosie's experiences as
a young girl in a sweatshop in Toronto, Freedman promised to tell
the story. With Rosie's Dream Cape (Ronsdale Press, 2005),
she fulfils that commitment in a way that provides insight into
how life in Canada was – and, unfortunately, still is –
for many immigrants.
The novel tells the story of Rosie at age 11. She and her grandmother,
Bubba Sarah, arrive in Toronto from Russia in January 1921. Rosie
works at Yitzy's garment factory for $5 a week so that she and her
grandmother can survive. In addition to dealing with some troublesome
co-workers – other young girls – Rosie must deal with
Yitzy and the working conditions at the factory. As well, she has
nightmares of the night in Russia on which her mother, a ballerina,
was taken by the Cossacks because "she sometimes spoke out
about artists' rights."
Rosie makes the best of her hard life in Toronto. She dreams of
sewing a cape just like the one she remembers her mother having,
which Bubba Sarah had designed and made: a black velvet cape with
wide flares at the bottom that hung down to her ankles, which had
a shiny red lining with a pattern on it and a big sparkling button
at the neck. She wants to re-create this cape so much that she risks
her job, stealing scraps of material from the factory despite Yitzy's
repeated warnings to not to do so.
Rosie's Dream Cape includes some beautiful black-and-white
illustrations. In addition to being an author, Freedman is a painter,
potter, weaver and seamstress. These facts, as well as that she
is a mother and grandmother, help her make Rosie's story ring true,
yet remain charming.
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