Kathy Kacer's name dots the pages of Second Story Press' Holocaust Remembrance Series. From her first book in 1999 to last year's Shanghai Surprise, no other author has contributed so many stories to the series. The Secret of Gabi's Dresser is bookended by contemporary snippets designed to draw young readers into the
One mother in my step-daughter's seventh-grade class complained. The teacher incorporated John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas into the lesson-plan, and this mother believes the subject is inappropriate for twelve- and thirteen-year-old students. Are children too young to grapple with such serious subjects? The story of Hana's Suitcase
Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, Claudette Colvin, fifteen years old, stayed in her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. It was March 2, 1955, but in the intervening years, this story has been all-but-forgotten. Phillip Hoose's work is essential reading.
As with the earlier stories in this collection, readers are cast back in time: by thirty years in "The Children Stay". Readers find themselves on the east coast of the Island, Vancouver Island, but the exact location of the cottage is reminiscent of the way in which the Maitland River
Admittedly, I chose There's an Owl in the Shower because I had read Jean Craighead George's classic My Side of the Mountain. I knew of her reputation for including ecological and environmental themes in the stories she has written for children. But when I realized that it had been published in
