Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport

by Caren Stelson

Other authorsSelina Alko (Illustrator)
Hardcover, 2023

Status

Available

Call number

J 940.53 STE

Publication

Carolrhoda Books ® (2023), 40 pages

Description

"The powerful and sensitively told true story of the Czech Kindertransport, which rescued 669 children from Nazi persecution on the eve of World War II"--Provided by publisher.

Barcode

7132

Awards

Texas Bluebonnet Award (Nominee — 2025)
National Jewish Book Award (Finalist — Children's Picture Book — 2023)
Orbis Pictus Award (Recommended Title — 2024)
CYBILS Awards (Finalist — 2023)

Language

User reviews

LibraryThing member blbooks
First sentence: When we were seven or eight or nine or ten, our home was the old city of Prague. In the summer when the sun lit up the sky, our mothers brought us to the city parks. We counted the boats on the river and had picnics of dark bread with cheese and slices of our mothers' sweet honey
Show More
cake.

Premise/plot: Nonfiction picture book for older readers. (Mid-to-upper elementary grades). Narrative nonfiction--history--set around the Second World War. This picture book is unusual/unique in that it is told in first person plural; it is a collective story; it uses we and our pronouns. The book tells of the kindertransport--a mission to rescue Jewish kids and get them OUT of Nazi-occupied countries. (In this case, Czechoslovakia).

My thoughts: I'd read a book for an adult audience on this subject matter. I'd watched a documentary as well. I was fairly familiar with the subject. This is such an emotional story. But I don't mean that it has added melodrama or theatrics to history. The plain, bare facts are enough to break your heart as you read. I think the collective "we/our" works with this one. I don't want to say it "makes" it personal or more personal. But I think it helps with empathy.

There are not that many picture books about the Holocaust and the Second World War. There are a handful for sure. But not hundreds. (I can think of several starring Anne Frank. It is always refreshing to see a book that doesn't limit the story to being just Anne's story.) There are so many voices, so many stories--each one deserving of being heard.
Show Less

ISBN

1541598687 / 9781541598683
Page: 0.8027 seconds