Chance
Escape from the Holocaust: Memories of a Refugee Childhood
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- £12.99
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- £12.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Illustrated Books for Older Readers
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2020
A New York Times Best Children's Book of 2020
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2020
Booklist Best Books of 2020
Horn Book Fanfare 2020 Booklist
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2020
Jewish Journal Twenty of the Best 2020 (Non-Holiday) Jewish Books for Kids
A National Jewish Book Award 2020 Finalist for Middle Grade Fiction
A 2021 Golden Dome Book Award Selection
“Harrowing, engaging and utterly honest.” —Elizabeth Wein, The New York Times Book Review
“A captivating chronicle of eight turbulent years.” —The Wall Street Journal
From a beloved voice in children’s literature comes this landmark memoir of hope amid harrowing times and an engaging and unusual Holocaust story.
With backlist sales of over 2.3 million copies, Uri Shulevitz, one of Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s most acclaimed picture-book creators, details the eight-year odyssey of how he and his Jewish family escaped the terrors of the Nazis by fleeing Warsaw for the Soviet Union in Chance.
It was during those years, with threats at every turn, that the young Uri experienced his awakening as an artist, an experience that played a key role during this difficult time. By turns dreamlike and nightmarish, this heavily illustrated account of determination, courage, family loyalty, and the luck of coincidence is a true publishing event.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This searing, evocative memoir chronicles the wartime experiences of Caldecott Medalist Shulevitz, whose family fled 1939 Warsaw to avoid persecution when he was four years old, only to suffer starvation and other tribulations in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Germany before eventually settling in Paris. The spare, keenly observed narrative offers a harrowing look at a Jewish family's plight during WWII while documenting the birth of an artist with a great capacity for creativity: Shulevitz draws stick figures in profile before the war, sketches "with my finger in the air" to distract himself from hunger in Turkestan, and hones his craft to win a citywide drawing competition in Paris. Stark and powerful black-and-white drawings by the author underscore gritty realities: people forced to carry water after Nazi planes bomb Warsaw, tension and fear in a truck bound for Bia ystok, confrontations with Soviet officials, and a crowded bed the family inhabits in a settlement work camp. This affecting memoir of Shulevitz's childhood as a war refugee provides a deeply personal testament to the power of art. Ages 8 14.
