The Cats in Krasinski Square

Rating:
Summary: Award winner from the Association of Jewish Libraries!
Review: This title was named a 2004 Sydney Taylor Honor Book by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

This is a lyrical story based on a little-known WWII incident, in which "cats [outfoxed] the Gestapo" in Warsaw. In Hesse's version, a girl who has escaped the Warsaw Ghetto befriends the lonely, ownerless cats in Krasinski Square. When her friends in the Resistance despair of getting food to friends behind the Ghetto wall, the girl suggests that they use the cats to distract the Nazi's dogs. The ensuing mayhem allows them to sneak the food into the Ghetto.

The book is beautifully crafted. Hesse's signature spare style and Watson's understated drawings create a Holocaust story with a light touch. An end note provides context, explaining the incident itself and WWII in general.

This is a book that older readers, familiar with the Holocaust and the story of the Warsaw Ghetto, will appreciate. It does NOT make an appropriate introduction to Holocaust history for those unfamiliar with the subject.


Rating:
Summary: A story to share
Review: Writing for children about the Holocaust takes a special gift. It can be difficult to communicate the horror of those years to young readers without delving into atrocities and concentration camps. Gifted writer Karen Hesse has brought us a true story that can be shared in picture book form.

The opening lines of the story set the scene, "The cats come from the cracks in the Wall, the dark corners, the openings in the rubble." The "Wall" is the wall around the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1939, the German Gestapo crowded Jews into this area of the city where the horrible conditions caused starvation, disease and death.

The young narrator of the story has escaped the ghetto and is "passing" as an Aryan on the other side of the wall. She fears for her friend Michal who is still inside the ghetto. Her sister, Mira is part of the Resistance and they have a plan to smuggle food to the people behind the wall. When the Germans find out about the plan and move to thwart it, the Resistance turns to the abandoned cats of the city to save the day and the food.

Wendy Watson's illustrations are lovely. Her style and color palette take us back to this time period. Seeing the pictures of the merry-go-round and the holes in the wall was especially evocative having just read Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli.