HOW can one possibly teach children about what it was like to live through the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust?

Many authors have found ingenious ways to try, and these two linked novels are among the most accessible and the most memorable.

Felix is a Polish Jewish boy, hidden by his parents in a Catholic orphanage before they are taken away to the death camps. Ignorant of what is happening, he rashly runs away from this safe refuge in an attempt to find them, embarking on a real-life adventure which must surely be one of the most terrifying in all children’s literature. Capture and death are ever-present. But even in the face of such evil, Gleitzman shows how there can be good, bad and simply foolish or frightened people on both sides. Though immensely readable, this is not exactly the stuff of bedtime stories; but it would be a good choice for older children trying to make sense of Second World War studies at school. (Age 9+)