Image: Author's Website
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. #tbt features Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy. This first-person verse novel tells the story of Syvia Perimutter, the author's aunt, who was four when she and her family were relocated to the Lodz Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland in 1939. She lived there until she was ten and the ghetto was liberated. Of the 270,000 people who were forced into the ghetto, only 800 survived and just 12 of those survivors were children. She and her siblings were hidden in cellars when the children were to be deported to concentration camps.
The author chose to tell her aunt's story in free verse as a work of historical fiction instead of a more distant informational voice. While it is fiction, every word is true. It's a short, but powerful book. Suspense is high and there will be tears. An extensive author's note in the back matter details the lives of the survivors in the post-war period.
Yellow Star was published in 2006. It was named a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, a Sydney Taylor Honor, an ALA Notable Book, and an SLJ Best Book. It's audio version won a "Headphones Award." I read this one with my ears, but don't recommend listening while driving. I had to pull my car over to cry.
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