Erika's Story - Softcover

Vander Zee, Ruth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0898128919 ISBN 13: 9780898128918

Publisher: Creative Paperbacks, 2013

Synopsis

It is the winter of 1944. In Nazi-occupied Europe, a Jewish couple realize their fate is sealed and make a heart-rending decision so that their infant daughter might live. Ruth Vander Zee's elegant narration and Roberto Innocenti's searing and beautiful illustrations combine to capture the fear, love, and sadness of a Holocaust survivor's story.

About this title

About the Author:

Ruth Vander Zee (Author) Ruth was brought up in Chicago. At the age of forty, she decided to get her college degree in education and later began writing stories for children. Ruth and her husband Vern live in Miami, Florida.Roberto Innocenti (Illustrator) Roberto Innocenti was born in 1940 in Bagno a Ripoli, a small town near Florence. Never having attended art school, he went to Rome to work in an animation studio. Returning to Florence, he began designing books and illustrating film and theatre posters. He has illustrated Pinocchio, A Christmas Carol, J. Patrick Lewis's The Last Resort and Ruth Vander Zee's Erika's Story. He lives in Florence with his wife.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 3 Up-Vander Zee narrates this true story in the voice of Erika, a woman she encountered in a German village, who, as a blanket-wrapped infant, was thrown from a cattle car bound for a concentration camp in 1944. ("On her way to death, my mother threw me to life.") A German woman risked her own life to raise Erika, who eventually married and had children of her own. ("Today my tree once again has roots.") The spare, eloquent text perfectly complements Innocenti's gray and beige photo-realistic illustrations that show haunting, finely detailed, sterile winter scenes of train cars, tracks, and cold brick-and-stone buildings surrounded by barbed wire. On other pages, a white baby carriage and the small pink bundle catch the eye. Only the contemporary opening scene and the final postwar spread are in full color. Compelling and powerful in its simplicity, Erika's story proves that determination, hope, and goodness can overcome evil. Stars are important to this story. Yellow Stars of David are visible on the people's clothing and the symbol appears on every page, separating Erika's thoughts. She mentions God's biblical promise to Abraham that his people "would be as many as the stars in the heavens," and that "six million of those stars fell between 1933 and 1945." The large die-cut yellow pentagram on the front cover is a jarring exception to the carefully crafted text and illustrations. This poignant story of survival deserves a wide audience.
Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
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About this edition

• Publisher: Creative Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0898128919
• ISBN 13: 9780898128918
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Innocenti Roberto