The Tower of Life by Chana Stiefel and Susan Gal - ESSENTIAL

 The Tower of Life: how Yaffa Eliach rebuilt her town in stories and photographs by Chana Stiefel, illustrated by Susan Gal. NON-FICTION PICTURE BOOK. Scholastic, 2022. $19. 9781338225891

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS - ESSENTIAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH

Yaffa was a little girl when the German army swept into her small village and killed nearly every Jewish inhabitant. Over the next few years, Yaffa and her family fled and hid – always a few steps away from capture. When Yaffa came to America, she became a renowned Holocaust scholar. When President Jimmy Carter asked her to help create an exhibit for the Holocaust Museumin WDC, she remembered the few photographs she managed to save and spent the next 17 years traveling the world to look for other photographs that may have remained as witness to her village.

Wow, Wow! What an awesome story. Any class in any school that studies the Holocaust or refugees will devour this book. Students may not understand at the beginning of the story why it is so important, but by the end they will be drawn in just like I was. What a precious new piece to our knowledge of history! I don’t always wish for more back matter in my picture books, but this one needed so much more! I guess I’ll have to do my own research. 

Cindy Mitchell, Library Teacher, MLS