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Caren Stelson

author

PEACE

for all

Stars of the Night

Stars of the Night

Stars of the Night:
The Courageous Children
of the Czech Kindertransport

writ­ten by Caren Stelson

illus­trat­ed by Selina Alko

Carolrhoda Books, 7 Feb 2023

ISBN 978–1541598683, ages 7–11

A por­tion of the pro­ceeds
from this book are being donat­ed to

We encour­age you to con­sid­er a dona­tion as well.

“When we were sev­en or eight or nine or ten, our home was the old city of Prague.”

So begins this pow­er­ful sto­ry of the chil­dren who were res­cued from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, as Hitler’s cam­paign of hatred toward Jews and polit­i­cal dis­si­dents took hold. Told from the col­lec­tive per­spec­tive of the chil­dren, the nar­ra­tive starts in 1938 and fol­lows them as they jour­ney to fos­ter fam­i­lies in England for the dura­tion of the war, return to Prague after­ward in an unsuc­cess­ful search for their par­ents, and even­tu­al­ly con­nect with Nicholas Winton, a British for­mer stock­bro­ker who was instru­men­tal in bring­ing them to safety.

Award-winning author Caren Stelson teams up with acclaimed illus­tra­tor Selina Alko to sen­si­tive­ly tell this tale of sur­vival and defi­ance in the face of tyran­ny. Learn the inspir­ing his­to­ry of the Czech Kindertransport, which res­cued 669 chil­dren from Nazi persecution.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

ALA Notable Children’s Book

Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year, Outstanding Merit

National Jewish Book Award Finalist

New York Public Library Best Books for Kids

Notable Books for a Global Society List Selection

Orbis Pictus Recommended Book

School Library Journal Best Book

Texas Bluebonnet Masterlist

RESOURCES

REVIEWS

“This book tells my father’s sto­ry through the eyes of the chil­dren he helped to save from the Holocaust. My father, an ordi­nary man, put togeth­er a small team and togeth­er they saved 669 chil­dren. His sto­ry is a reminder of the huge dif­fer­ence any one of us can make in the lives of oth­ers. Our world depends on it. This trag­ic episode in our his­to­ry is being repeat­ed now in many parts of the world. Governments alone seem unable to solve these problems―it is down to peo­ple like him, peo­ple like us, to make the change we want to see.” (Nick Winton, son of Sir Nicholas Winton)

“An unlike­ly hero saved the lives of hun­dreds of chil­dren dur­ing the Holocaust. Stelson describes how Jewish Czech chil­dren were saved via the Kindertransport dur­ing World War II. Beginning in 1938, they were tak­en via train from their home­town, Prague, to England, where they lived with fos­ter fam­i­lies for sev­er­al years while war raged in con­ti­nen­tal Europe. After the war, they returned home to learn most of their par­ents had per­ished. Many years lat­er, they also dis­cov­ered, for the first time, the iden­ti­ty of the self-effacing man who had lit­er­al­ly set the wheels in motion by orga­niz­ing the trans­ports and secur­ing nec­es­sary doc­u­ments, allow­ing them—a total of 669 children—to leave their war-ravaged coun­try and Nazi bru­tal­i­ty behind so that they might live. His name? Nicholas “Nicky” Winton, an Englishman work­ing in Prague in the late ’30s and one of many whose con­tri­bu­tions made the Kindertransport pos­si­ble. Decades lat­er, he was hon­ored by the Czech pres­i­dent and knight­ed by Queen Elizabeth II for his ser­vices to human­i­ty. This sear­ing account is all the more heart-rending because it is col­lec­tive­ly nar­rat­ed by the young peo­ple saved by Winton, deliv­ered in the inno­cent, matter-of-fact voice of a child. The illus­tra­tions, ren­dered in acrylic, col­ored pen­cil, and col­lage, are pow­er­ful­ly poignant and have child­like appeal, cap­tur­ing read­ers’ sym­pa­thet­ic atten­tion. A back­mat­ter fea­ture, “Winton’s Children,” notes that five depict­ed chil­dren rep­re­sent actu­al young peo­ple saved by Winton, who is him­self por­trayed. A not-to-be-missed, inspi­ra­tional book about courage, heart, and the neces­si­ty of car­ing for oth­ers. (time­line, more infor­ma­tion about the Kindertransport, infor­ma­tion on the Yad Vashem’s Children’s Memorial, pho­tos, author’s note, illustrator’s note, source notes, bib­li­og­ra­phy, fur­ther read­ing)” (This book was reviewed dig­i­tal­ly.) (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“In this qui­et but imme­di­ate non­fic­tion pic­ture book, Stelson (A Bowl Full of Peace) tells the sto­ry of the 669 chil­dren evac­u­at­ed via the Kindertransport, with the help of Nicholas Winton, from Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s to escape the Nazis. The first-person-plural nar­ra­tion main­ly sticks to the col­lec­tive point of view of the chil­dren, let­ting read­ers expe­ri­ence their bewil­der­ment first at the ear­ly signs of war and per­se­cu­tion and then at the unex­plained “hol­i­day to England” with­out their par­ents; occa­sion­al “none of us knew” asides hint at the help Winton was pro­vid­ing behind the scenes. As time pass­es and the war ends, read­ers find out along with the nar­ra­tors that most of their par­ents have per­ished dur­ing the Holocaust, and final­ly learn Winton’s iden­ti­ty. The in-the-moment text com­bines with emo­tion­al acrylic, colored-pencil, and col­lage illus­tra­tions in Alko’s (I Is for Immigrants) sig­na­ture style to cre­ate a dream­like atmos­phere. Extensive back mat­ter pro­vides fur­ther con­text; a note explains that five of the chil­dren in the illus­tra­tions rep­re­sent spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als among “Winton’s chil­dren,” and a quote from the moth­er of one of them, Vera Gissing, inspires the tit­u­lar star motif. Pair with Sís’s Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued. (The Horn Book, starred review, Shoshona Flax)

“While there’s no short­age of Holocaust sto­ries, Stelson has writ­ten a mov­ing and uplift­ing account of a human­i­tar­i­an effort that ulti­mate­ly saved 669 Jewish Czech chil­dren. The Kindertransport took chil­dren from their home­town of Prague to England, where they lived with fos­ter fam­i­lies while war broke out at home and most of their fam­i­lies were killed. The remark­able tale is told through a first-person plur­al that repli­cates the children’s inno­cent voic­es and expe­ri­ences; Alko’s rich acrylic and col­lage illus­tra­tions help bring the heart­break­ing his­tor­i­cal event to life and ren­der it acces­si­ble to a young audi­ence. The sto­ry ends 50 years lat­er, when the mys­tery of who helped the chil­dren, now grown, is revealed; Nicholas Winton, a British Jew and for­mer banker, arranged all of it. “By sav­ing us as chil­dren, Nicholas Winton saved our chil­dren, our grand­chil­dren, and all their chil­dren to come.” The weight of his inspir­ing work is ines­timable. Back mat­ter includes fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the Kindertransport and Yad Vashem’s Children’s Memorial, a time line, source notes, author’s note, illustrator’s note, bib­li­og­ra­phy, and fur­ther read­ing. VERDICT A nec­es­sary and inspi­ra­tional book about a little-known light amid a dark peri­od of his­to­ry, this book should find a home in all libraries.” (School Library Journal, starred review, Carrie Voliva)

Stars of the Night

Stars of the Night:
The Courageous Children
of the Czech Kindertransport

writ­ten by Caren Stelson

illus­trat­ed by Selina Alko

Carolrhoda Books, 7 Feb 2023

ISBN 978–1467789035, grades 5–12

A por­tion of the pro­ceeds
from this book are being donat­ed to

We encour­age you to
con­sid­er a dona­tion as well.