As I organized my notes for our Holocaust unit of study, I started making a list of the books I would be making available to my students for their book clubs. At this point I had a pretty good selection of WWII novels, allowing each book club to focus on a different aspect of the Holocaust and WWII. Using our essential questions, they would be focusing on these different aspects and then sharing them with the class at the end of the unit.
So far my list was pretty varied:
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow
Boy Who Dared
Someone Named Eva
Behind the Bedroom Wall
Weedflower
Milkweed
The Green Glass Sea
Under the Blood-Red Sun
I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust
We would be reading The Devil’s Arithmetic as a class read-aloud, but it still felt like something was missing. As I perused my bookshelves, I found one more book that would be perfect for my developing readers and would cover an aspect of the war that was not already represented. T4 a novel is a verse novel about the T4 program, which targeted the disabled. Perfect! But our school library did not have any copies and I only had one. WIthout even thinking, I logged onto Amazon and placed an order for more copies. I also quickly checked our local library and found two more copies that students would be able to check out. Within minutes, I had completed my book club planning!
Filed under: slice of life challenge | Tagged: slice of life challenge |
The Reading Zone 
Have you ever seen I never saw another butterfly or Rose Blanche? Could finish up this already incredible book list that I know you spent the weekend creating. Nice work.
One other thing: I have an excellent speaker, if you’re interested, whom I could recommend to you. He spoke with the 5th – 7th grades at my school in NYC, but prefers middle school audiences. LMK, off-line, if you want his contact information. He was a hidden child whose story captivated an entire auditorium full of kids.
Those are some good choices. I taught Anne Frank, WWII, and the Holocaust to 7th graders a few years back, and now do Number the Stars with my 4th graders. In 8th grade our students visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. and I think they have a better appreciation of their history. In 4th grade I talk more about the kindertransport and how children’s lives were affected. Into the Arms of Strangers is a good video to show.
Room in the Heart, too.
I can’t pass by without recommending Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy. It’s an amazing book about one of only 12 children to walk out of one of the Jewish ghettos in Poland after the Nazis took control. Amazing book written in verse.
Great book choices. I used Devil’s Arithmetic with a 5th grade book club-they liked the book and I was amazing they had never heard of the Holocaust.
I recently added The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas to my holocaust list. Understated but incredible!