#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A NEW YORK TIMES READER TOP 100 PICK FOR BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURYThe extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times.When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.  In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.   “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times   “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA TodayDON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF. Read more

Two young boys encounter the best and worst of humanity during the Holocaust in this powerful read that USA Today called "as memorable an introduction to the subject as The Diary of Anne Frank.”  Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance. But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences. Read more

An international bestseller, a #1 New York Times bestseller, and now a major motion picture! Ruta Sepetys's Between Shades of Gray is now the film Ashes in the Snow!"Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both." --The Washington PostFrom New York Times and international bestseller and Carnegie Medal winner Ruta Sepetys, author of Salt to the Sea, comes a story of loss and of fear -- and ultimately, of survival. A New York Times notable bookAn international bestsellerA Carnegie Medal nominee A William C. Morris Award finalistA Golden Kite Award winner Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life -- until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive? A moving and haunting novel perfect for readers of The Book Thief.Praise for Between Shades of Gray:"Superlative. A hefty emotional punch." --The New York Times Book Review"Heart-wrenching . . . an eye-opening reimagination of a very real tragedy written with grace and heart." --The Los Angeles Times"At once a suspenseful, drama-packed survival story, a romance, and an intricately researched work of historial fiction." --The Wall Street Journal* "Beautifully written and deeply felt . . . An important book that deserves the widest possible readership." --Booklist, starred review Read more

From Alan Gratz, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Refugee, comes this wrenching novel about one boy's struggle to survive ten concentration camps during the Holocaust. Based on the inspiring true life story of Jack Gruener.10 concentration camps. 10 different places where you are starved, tortured, and worked mercilessly. It's something no one could imagine surviving. But it is what Yanek Gruener has to face. As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner -- his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087. He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another, as World War II rages all around him. He encounters evil he could have never imagined, but also sees surprising glimpses of hope amid the horror. He just barely escapes death, only to confront it again seconds later. Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will -- and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside? Based on an astonishing true story. Read more

This bestselling and award-winning novel about a teenage girl in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam speaks powerfully to the realities of grief, heartbreak, and bravery, perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah and Ruta Sepetys. Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion. On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person—a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action. Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary novel about courage, grief, and love in impossible times. Read more

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This program features a prologue read by Dita Kraus. Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, The Librarian of Auschwitz is the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust. Written with touching sensitivity by Antonio Iturbe, and translated by Lilit Thwaites, this audiobook provokes every emotional response and will not be forgotten. Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz. Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope. This title has Common Core connections. Read more

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and an American Bookseller "Pick of the Lists", The Devil's Arithmetic plunges the listener into the terrible realities of the Nazi concentration camps. Chaya's tale is a celebration of the strength of the human spirit and a dramatic introduction to the darkest period of modern history. Read more

In the rubble of a broken continent, a girl must solve a mystery whose answers could rebuild her family—or break her completely, in this New York Times bestselling, critically acclaimed tour de force historical novel from Monica Hesse, author of Girl in the Blue Coat.   Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp say the war is over, but nothing feels over to eighteen-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal, her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else—her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja—they went left.   Zofia's last words to her brother were a promise: Abek to Zofia, A to Z. When I find you again, we will fill our alphabet. Now her journey to fulfill that vow takes her through Poland and Germany, into a displaced persons camp where everyone she meets is trying to piece together a future from a painful past: Miriam, desperately searching for the twin she was separated from after they survived medical experimentation. Breine, a former heiress, who now longs only for a simple wedding with her new fiancé. And Josef, who guards his past behind a wall of secrets, and is beautiful and strange and magnetic all at once. But the deeper Zofia digs, the more impossible her search seems. How can she find one boy in a sea of the missing?   Read more

A stunning novel of the Holocaust from Newbery Medalist, Jerry Spinelli. And don't miss the author's highly anticipated new novel, Dead Wednesday!He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Filthy son of Abraham.He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself, and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels.He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi, with tall, shiny jackboots of his own-until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind.And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable-Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II-and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young Holocaust orphan. Read more

This is the remarkable true story of a family during one of the bleakest periods in history, a story that "radiates optimism and the resilience of the human spirit" (Washington Post). In June 1941, the Rudomin family is arrested by the Russians. They are accused of being capitalists, “enemies of the people.” Forced from their home and friends in Vilna, Poland, they are herded into crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia.For five years, Esther and her family live in exile, weeding potato fields, working in the mines, and struggling to stay alive. But in the middle of hardship and oppression, the strength of their small family sustains them and gives them hope for the future.The first winner of the Sydney Taylor Awards was Esther Hautzig's The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia, and 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of this powerful classic.NOTE:Now with new cover Read more

The extraordinary story of Stefania Podgorska, a Polish teenager who chose bravery and humanity by hiding thirteen Jews in her attic during WWII, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sharon Cameron -- now a Reese's Book Club YA Pick!One knock at the door, and Stefania has a choice to make...It is 1943, and for four years, sixteen-year-old Stefania has been working for the Diamant family in their grocery store in Przemysl, Poland, singing her way into their lives and hearts. She has even made a promise to one of their sons, Izio -- a betrothal they must keep secret since she is Catholic and the Diamants are Jewish.But everything changes when the German army invades Przemysl. The Diamants are forced into the ghetto, and Stefania is alone in an occupied city, the only one left to care for Helena, her six-year-old sister. And then comes the knock at the door. Izio's brother Max has jumped from the train headed to a death camp. Stefania and Helena make the extraordinary decision to hide Max, and eventually twelve more Jews. Then they must wait, every day, for the next knock at the door, the one that will mean death. When the knock finally comes, it is two Nazi officers, requisitioning Stefania's house for the German army.With two Nazis below, thirteen hidden Jews above, and a little sister by her side, Stefania has one more excruciating choice to make.This remarkable tale of courage and humanity, based on a true story, is now a Reese's Book Club YA Pick! Read more

“This is an excellent book for sensitizing young people of any denomination to recognize injustice.”—Church & Synagogue LibrariesChild Study Children’s Book Committee Book of the Year SelectionThe animals in the clearing were content until the Terrible Things came, capturing all creatures with feathers.Little Rabbit wondered what was wrong with feathers, but his fellow animals silenced him. “Just mind your own business, Little Rabbit. We don’t want them to get mad at us.”A recommended text in Holocaust education programs across the United States, this unique introduction to the Holocaust encourages young children to stand up for what they think is right, without waiting for others to join them.Ages 6 and up Read more

Can Greta Kolbe escape Nazi Vienna and board a steamship to America before her past and the Gestapo catch up to her?“Vienna on Fire is a fast-paced Olympian sprint mined with dangers every mile of the way. Author Gabor’s writing is sleek. Unique enough in the WWII genre to be a compelling read.” —Peter Clenott, Historical Novel Society"Vienna on Fire" by Don Gabor tells the inspiring survival story of Greta Kolbe, an eighteen-year-old Jewish woman whose comfortable life is upended when Adolf Hitler’s German army marches into Austria in 1938.When Vienna's Jewish community spirals into a daily nightmare of intimidation, hardships, and terror, Greta joins other resisters as they pass out leaflets, paint anti-fascist slogans on walls, and sabotage military vehicles. Threatened with arrest for her role in a prison break, Greta flees Vienna to The Netherlands for a ship to America while a vengeful ex-suitor-turned Nazi and the Gestapo trail close behind.Driven by courage, cunning, and determination on her treacherous journey, Greta smuggles diamonds for the German resistance, eludes Hermann Göring's crude advances at his drug-fueled orgy, and fights for her life in a bloody shootout at the German-Dutch border. Greta’s race against time crescendos to a nail-biting climax on the gangplank of a ship bound for New York City.AudiobookReviewer.com has awarded VIENNA ON FIRE AUDIOBOOK the 2024 Best Team Award.“Don Gabor and narrator Gabrielle de Cuir worked very closely together to create an immersive and unforgettable audiobook. Gabrielle de Cuir’s seamless ability to embody the characters and adapt to each moment is both fluid and impressive. This is an immersive listen that compels you to keep going and leaves an unforgettable impression long after it's over. I highly recommend this audiobook!” —AudiobookReviewer.com"Vienna on Fire provides a gripping and historically accurate account of the resilience of the human spirit amid the darkest of times." —Erin Britton, San Francisco Book Review"Libraries and readers seeking exceptional portraits of Jewish survivors in general and strong young women who foster different responses to escape and survival, refusing to become victims, will find Vienna on Fire absolutely captivating. It’s powered by strong characters whose perceptions and conflicts are not just realistic but thoroughly absorbing "you are here” experiences." —Diane Donovan, Midwest Book ReviewAuthored by Don Gabor, known for "How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends," this novel was inspired by his mother's real-life experiences and is a tribute to her and those who opposed the Third Reich. "Vienna on Fire" describes in vivid detail the threats Greta Kolbe faces during Europe’s most forbidding time and reveals her grit, ingenuity, and persistence as she seeks a new life in America.Read or listen to this remarkable story of survival and the human spirit—secure your print, e-Book, or audiobook copy of “Vienna on Fire.” Read more

From the New York Times best-selling author of the Emily Windsnap series, Liz Kessler, comes a “brutally honest and totally believable” (Booklist, starred review) story of three young friends whose fates are intertwined during the devastation of the Holocaust - based on a true story.Three friends. One memory. Vienna. 1936. Three young friends - Leo, Elsa, and Max - spend a perfect day together, unaware that around them Europe is descending into a growing darkness and that they will soon be cruelly ripped apart from one another. With their lives taking them across Europe - to Germany, England, Prague, and Poland - will they ever find their way back to one another? Will they want to?Inspired by a true story, When the World Was Ours is an extraordinary novel that is as powerful as it is heartbreaking and that shows how the bonds of love, family, and friendship allow glimmers of hope to flourish, even in the most hopeless of times. Read more

A dramatic story of duplicity and resistance, betrayal and loyalty, set against the backdrop of World War II, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Light in Hidden Places.Isa de Smit was raised in the vibrant, glittering world of her parents' small art gallery in Amsterdam, a hub of beauty, creativity, and expression, until the Nazi occupation wiped the color from her city's palette. The "degenerate" art of the Gallery de Smit is confiscated, the artists in hiding or deported, her best friend, Truus, fled to join the shadowy Dutch resistance. And masterpiece by masterpiece, the Nazis are buying and stealing her country's heritage, feeding the Third Reich's ravenous appetite for culture and art.So when the unpaid taxes threaten her beloved but empty gallery, Isa decides to make the Nazis pay. She sells them a fake--a Rembrandt copy drawn by her talented father--a sale that sets Isa perilously close to the second most hated class of people in Amsterdam: the collaborators. Isa sells her beautiful forgery to none other than Hitler himself, and on the way to the auction, discovers that Truus is part of a resistance ring to smuggle Jewish babies out of Amsterdam.But Truus cannot save more children without money. A lot of money. And Isa thinks she knows how to get it. One more forgery, a copy of an exquisite Vermeer, and the Nazis will pay for the rescue of the very children they are trying annihilate. To make the sale, though, Isa will need to learn the art of a master forger, before the children can be deported, and before she can be outed as a collaborator. And she finds an unlikely source to help her do it: the young Nazi soldier, a blackmailer and thief of Dutch art, who now says he wants to desert the German army.Yet, worth is not always seen from the surface, and a fake can be difficult to spot. Both in art, and in people. Based on the true stories of Han Van Meegeren, a master art forger who sold fakes to Hermann Goering, and Johann van Hulst, credited with saving 600 Jewish children from death in Amsterdam, Sharon Cameron weaves a gorgeously evocative thriller, simmering with twists, that looks for the forgotten color of beauty, even in an ugly world."War, resistance, and art are Cameron's canvas; her palette is a balance of trust and perfidy, beauty and defiance, new life and old. Artifice is a vibrantly-hued and many-layered story, exploring our very human inability to spot a fake when we long to believe that the object of all our desire is the real thing." -- Elizabeth Wein, New York Times bestselling author of Code Name Verity* "Painterly prose...filled with rich intrigue depicts constantly shifting issues of trust in this complex, absorbing tale." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review Read more

“In 1945 the war ended. The Germans surrendered, and the ghetto was liberated. Out of over a quarter of a million people, about 800 walked out of the ghetto. Of those who survived, only twelve were children. I was one of the twelve.” For more than fifty years after the war, Syvia, like many Holocaust survivors, did not talk about her experiences in the Lodz ghetto in Poland. She buried her past in order to move forward. But finally she decided it was time to share her story, and so she told it to her niece, who has re-told it here using free verse inspired by her aunt. This is the true story of Syvia Perlmutter―a story of courage, heartbreak, and finally survival despite the terrible circumstances in which she grew up. A timeline, historical notes, and an author’s note are included. Read more

A HEART-STOPPING ADVENTURE BASED ON THE TRUE STORY OF THE TEENAGE REBELS WHO STOOD UP TO THE NAZISWhen sixteen-year-old Daniel befriends Josef Gerlach, he feels the old man is haunted by a secret from his past. Sure enough when Josef gives him his teenage diary to read, Daniel discovers a shocking story of rebellion and struggle.The diary tells how Josef left the Hitler Youth for a gang called The Edelweiss Pirates. Their uniform: long hair and cool clothes. Their motto: freedom! At first the Pirates are only interested in hanging out and having a good time, but as the situation in Nazi Germany gets worse, they start to plan dangerous missions against Hitler's regime-soon they are fighting for their lives. Read more

Shining a light on a little-known aspect of the Holocaust, Lucy Adlington weaves an unforgettable story of strength, survival, and a friendship that can endure anything.Three weeks after being detained on her way home from school, fourteen-year-old Ella finds herself in the Upper Tailoring Studio, a sewing workshop inside a Nazi concentration camp. There, two dozen skeletal women toil over stolen sewing machines. They are the seamstresses of Birchwood, stitching couture dresses for a perilous client list: wives of the camp’s Nazi overseers and the female SS officers who make prisoners’ lives miserable. It is a workshop where stylish designs or careless stitches can mean life or death. And it is where Ella meets Rose. As thoughtful and resilient as the dressmakers themselves, Rose and Ella’s story is one of courage, desperation, and hope — hope as delicate and as strong as silk, as vibrant as a red ribbon in a sea of gray. Read more

From Philip Kerr, the New York Times bestselling author of the Bernie Gunther novels, comes a breathtaking journey of survival in the dark days of WWII in Ukraine, a country that remains tumultuous today. This inspiring tale captures the power of the human spirit and is perfect for fans of The Book Thief, Milkweed, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.It will soon be another cold winter in the Ukraine.  But it's 1941, and things are different this year.  Max, the devoted caretaker of an animal preserve, must learn to live with the Nazis who have overtaken this precious land. He must also learn to keep secrets—for there is a girl, Kalinka, who is hiding in the park.Kalinka has lost her home, her family, her belongings—everything but her life.  Still, she has gained one small, precious gift: a relationship with the rare wild and wily Przewalski's horses that wander the preserve. Aside from Max, these endangered animals are her only friends—until a Nazi campaign of extermination nearly wipes them out for good.Now Kalinka must set out on a treacherous journey across the frozen forest to save the only two surviving horses—and herself. Read more