Poland is born anew in the late 1980s. Like most births, it’s messy. Post-Soviet Poland has transitioned to a capitalist economy, leaving deep trenches of flux and discord in its wake. Inflation is sky high, entire neighborhoods are left jobless, and there isn’t enough food to go around.
Breadcrumbs is the memoir of Kasia Babis, who was born in and grew up during this time of massive change. Her dedication goes out to her closest friends, as they “survived being girls together.” It’s a hard-hitting statement. To an American reader (like myself), this is already a difficult thing. To someone who had to survive being a girl and in a country in political and cultural disarray, well, that just builds better character, right?
Babis fights her way through adolescence, forges her personal beliefs against the backdrop of a fiercely Catholic country, and wades through the misinformation, nationalism, economic upheaval, and hard truths about her life and friends in a post-Soviet world. This story is about growing up in a rapidly-changing world and how some people choose to cope. Some get swept along, others self-medicate, and Babis chooses to become active in protests. It is a compelling story, and has a somewhat harrowing ending.
I’m a big fan of minimalist color palettes and Babis keeps it very simple with washed out grays and splotches of red here and there – sometimes to denote importance, sometimes not. It’s a color combination I have seen generate fear and stark contrast, but the book is still full of friendly faces. There is a nice hand-drawn quality to the uneven, thick lines that border each panel and figure. The drawings depicting Babis and her story are a little evocative of the work of Kate Beaton (largely realistic with some cartoonish elements), which I only mention because of the sections that detail history. These panels are done with careful attention to the physical details of the historical figures they describe and result in a colder, more detached style.
Breadcrumbs’ narrative touches on a lot of subjects and topics that younger readers might not understand or be ready for; complex ideas like communism vs. capitalism vs. democratic socialism, separation of government powers, generational trauma, domestic violence, abortion, women’s rights, and men’s issues. The publisher, 23rd St. (an imprint of Roaring Book Press) states specifically its works are “for grown-ups.” I think this narrative casts a slightly wider net than that – I bet high school readers would find a lot to chew on. Otherwise, keep this one on the tall shelves for other adult readers. It’s a gripping memoir in the vein of Persepolis and The Best We Could Do.
Breadcrumbs By Kasia Babis 23rd Street, 2025 ISBN: 9781250877871 Publisher Age Recommendation: Adult NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult, High school Character Representation: Polish
Breadcrumbs Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Poland By Kasia Babis 23rd St., 2025 ISBN: 9781250877871
Company Age Rating: 18+
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18) Creator Representation: Polish, Character Representation: Polish,
The Girl Who Sang is a Holocaust survival memoir by Estelle Nadel and illustrator Sammy Savos that tells the former’s story of hiding from the Nazis and eventually fleeing her native Poland.
Born Enia Feld, the author’s story begins in April 1939 in Borek, in southern Poland. Enia is the youngest child in her family. Her older brothers are Shia and Minashe and her older sister is Sonjia. Her family are practicing Jews who farm and are friends with their Gentile (non-Jewish) neighbors. When the tale begins, the family are celebrating Passover and discussing the news about Hitler and the Nazi’s military advances. Readers see the family gathering together, preparing matzah, and praying in Hebrew, showing Jewish life to readers unfamiliar with their customs.
The book is told in five chronological parts introduced with the range of years during which each part occurs. Estelle remembers how the Nazis invaded Poland, forced Jews to wear the Star of David, displaced them from their homes, and rounded them up for transport to ghettos and death camps. Some of the non-Jews covertly sheltered their Jewish neighbors, which is how Enia and her brothers escaped the horrendous fate of other family members and friends. However, just because they did not end up in a death camp does not mean they had an easy time surviving.
One aspect of the book I appreciated was seeing the shades of morality that some characters portrayed. For example, one neighbor agrees to conceal Enia, her mother, and two brothers, but only for one night as he fears for his own life should the Gestapo discover his betrayal. Is such a character kind, malevolent, neither, or something in between? In another instance, Shia escapes the jail he and Enia have been imprisoned in, and dashes away before Enia can catch up. The terrified Enia freezes on the spot and breaks down crying. Shia later admits he heard her crying, but stayed away, afraid that she would get them both caught. What does the reader think of Shia’s actions? He instructed Enia on how to escape before getting free himself, but then he left her alone after he promised he would wait for her.
The panels of the book are well organized and easy to follow. The characters’ facial expressions and actions move the story along. Simple backgrounds keep most of the focus in the foreground where the characters are positioned. The color palette of dim earth tones preserves the solemn tone of the book and again keeps attention on the characters. Scenes of violence depict beating, shooting, and blood spatter. One instance of this is a firing squad. Blood paints the wall behind the people who have crumpled into corpses on the ground. In another scene, Nazi soldiers beat and then murder Chaya, who refuses to tell them where her children are hidden. This history and imagery are painful, but important to learn about for children who are old enough to do so.
Recommend The Girl Who Sang to older kids and tweens who like the I Survived series and other historical or biographical books.
The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival By Estelle Nadel Art by Sammy Savos Macmillan Roaring Brook, 2024 ISBN: 9781250247766
Publisher Age Rating: ages 10-14 NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
Creator Representation: Polish, Jewish Character Representation: Polish, Jewish
“This book is more than the story of how two Polish Jews survived; it is also a cautionary tale of what happens when people stand by and allow antisemitism, hate and prejudice to run rampant” (Introduction, xii).
This nonfiction graphic novel illuminates the story of Bluma Tishgarten and Felix Goldberg, two young Polish Jews who were survivors of the rise of fascism and Hitler’s rise to power. It also reveals the intensification of antisemitism in Europe and the rise and consequences of the Holocaust to contemporary readers. The narrative follows Bluma and Felix on their individual fraught journey to an eventual fruitful meeting filled with optimism, endurance, and promise. It does not sugar coat the horrors of the Nazi concentration and death camps but offers historical insight and background along with the pain and anguish experienced by the protagonists and their allies. It is not an easy story to read but an extremely important one, especially in our current society.
The story, opening in the present day, explains several Jewish customs before moving back through time to the explore the beginnings of the Holocaust in 1917. It paints a bleak picture for the Jewish population as events lead up to the rise of Hitler and the start of World War II. In alternate vignettes the reader follows Bluma and Felix as they are separated from everything and almost everyone they have known and thrown into the frightening cauldron of racial and religious exploitation.
Towards the end of the war, Felix is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he is tattooed and where 960,00 Jews, 74,000 Non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Romas, 15,000 Soviet POWs, and over 15,000 citizens of other nations died before liberation. At the same time, Bluma and her sister Cela are transferred to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp which also housed Jews, POWs, political prisoners, Romas, criminals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals and where approximately 50,000 people died. Both camps excelled at humiliating treatment and considered the inmates as less than human. Eventually the three protagonists, along with Felix’s friend David Miller, are sent to a Displaced Persons camp in Landsberg, Germany. (Ironically, in 1924, Adolf Hitler was imprisoned there and where he wrote Mein Kampf.) The four young people meet, fall in love, and have a double wedding before moving to the United States. Once they are settled, they begin informing others about the atrocities they experienced and the dangers of unbridled antisemitism. They encouraged their children to continue their mission with one of the results being this moving graphic novel.
The evocative black and white realistic illustrations signify both the hardships and the joys that the families experience. Most of the written content is in text boxes augmented by some dialogue. There is a great deal of information to absorb on each panel and page. A variety of panels and backgrounds of the pages add to the depth of data and emotion in the story.
Extensive back material includes family photographs, biographies of the creators and contributors of the graphic novel, a timeline of events related to World War II and the Holocaust, a succinct glossary, recommended resources, and an index.
Highly recommended for middle and high school libraries and public and academic library collections. The title has been nominated for inclusion in this year’s YALSA listing of Great Graphic Novels but is a substantial read for older readers.
Thanks to Crystal Strang who gifted me an autographed copy of the graphic novel after attending a presentation by the author, illustrator, and publisher. She, along with the creative team, truly understands the importance of making sure this message is spread far and wide for people of all ages.
We Survived the Holocaust: The Bluma and Felix Goldberg Story By Frank W. Baker Art by Tim E. Ogline Imagine & Wonder, 2022 ISBN: 9781637610206
Publisher Age Rating: 12-16
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16) Character Representation: Polish, Jewish
The beautifully illustrated comic biography, Marie Curie: A Quest for Light, shares the story of Curie’s life and Nobel Prize-winning scientific accomplishments.
The authors, Frances Andreasen Østerfelt and Anja Cetti Andersen, both have a passion for science and for Marie Curie. Østerfelt is a dental scientist and Andersen works to make scientific information more accessible to others. Together they wrote and published this book as tribute to Curie. The book was originally published in Danish in 2018, and translated to English by Østerflet.
The text follows the life of Curie from her childhood as Marya Sklodowska, through her schooling, then later her scientific work, her Nobel Prizes, and her death. It is a dense amount of information for the format (a middle grade comic biography). The text and book would have benefited from focusing on one aspect of her life (such as her scientific work with radiation). Instead, the book places a focus on her life as a whole, and each chapter deals with a set time period covering her life from childhood through her scientific career. Of the 5 chapters, only the last two discuss her scientific work and her life at that time.
To be fair, Curie did have a fascinating life. A childhood in a politically unstable Poland and the early deaths of her mother and sister definitely affected her life and work as a scientist, but this would have been more effective to frame in the context of scientific work. Giving equal focus on all periods of her life makes for a drier read, aside from the compelling imagery from Anna Blaszczyk.
Readers can’t help but to follow the flow of Blaszczyk’s collage illustrations filled with rich textures and dark muted colors. Rather than illustrating a basic chronological story in a more traditional comic format, these images build mood and the emotions behind moment’s in Curie’s life. In one particularly moving spread after the death of her husband, Curie is lost in the background against a sea of black, with her two daughters in the foreground asking for their mother. On another page images of Curie’s father, who first ignited her passion for science, float in a cloud of smoke across the page. Blaszcyzk’s illustrations carry fear, love, curiosity, sadness, joy and more throughout the story of Curie’s life.
There are some moments with awkward wording that may be a product of translation from one language and culture to another. I did appreciate the authors’ frequent use of quotes from letters to and from Curie. These quotes helped readers to contextualize the importance of these moments for Curie. The authors, Østerfelt and Andersen, were also able to use their own scientific understanding to describe Curie’s work with radiation in an accessible way. Their descriptions of her experiments and findings would be understood by most audiences. They were also able to give the context of the Curies’ discovery against the backdrop of the scientific world at the time.
Marie Curie: A Quest for Light could find a fit in a public library children’s collection or elementary (maybe middle) school libraries, especially where comic biographies are popular. I have been fascinated by Marie Curie since I was a child. When I was in elementary school, I read every biography I could find about her life, and I would have adored this book, dense with her life’s story and filled with captivating illustrations. I would have loved and cherished this book in elementary school. So there is definitely an audience for this book, but I am not sure it is a wide one. There are stronger Marie Curie biographies for a middle grade audience and more compelling comic biographies. I do not recommend this as a first choice purchase.
Marie Curie: A Quest for Light By Frances Andreasen Østerfelt, Anja Cetti Andersen Art by Anna Blaszczyk IDW, 2021 ISBN: 9781684058372
Publisher Age Rating: 9-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11) Creator Representation: Danish Character Representation: Polish
In this moving narrative about his father’s experiences in escaping Nazi-occupied Belgium to his eventual safe arrival in Canada, Cary Fagan effectively and efficiently offers contemporary young readers with relatable background information about this historical era.
Fagan’s introduction to Maurice Fejgenbaum begins abruptly; the reader is thrown immediately into the apprehension, chaos, and confusion experienced by the fourteen-year-old protagonist and his Jewish family as they frantically pack their belongings to flee persecution in Brussels. Along with the approaching lack of freedom, Maurice, who changed his surname to Fagan when he immigrated to Canada, articulates the everyday losses that the family is experiencing as they are displaced from their community. The family travels by train to Paris, Spain, and Portugal to finally escape to an internment camp in Jamaica, where there is little independence. Fortunately for Maurice, he finds a great deal of family and community support, along with some camp administration assistance. This support gives Maurice an informal but valuable education and the ability to obtain a second-hand English language dictionary, which becomes both his English language teacher and his talisman in his successful journey to becoming a lawyer at the University of Toronto in Canada.
It is Maurice’s thirst for knowledge and the strength of his family support that creates a foundation of hope against the ravages of war and antisemitism. His informal education does him in good stead as he applies to the local high school, Jamaica College. “I have learned the smallest act of kindness can make a huge difference” (41). This lesson is exemplified throughout the graphic novel, adversity is faced and overcome with the aid and kindness of those Maurice and his family meet in their struggle for autonomy.
The book as an object is deceptive as it appears to be a picture book intended for younger readers. However, opening the covers immediately dispenses with that assumption. The sepia illustrations and the panel layout illuminate the perils the family faces leaving their home, crossing Europe, and the tossing seas that accompany their voyage to Jamaica. As with the text, the illustrations offer lightness and hope within the borders of the horrifying wartime experiences while at the same time being authentic portrayals of them. The dangers and horrors the refugees experience during wartime are not sugar coated by either the text or the illustrations. The color palate used by Mariano contrasts the sombre colors of war with orange backgrounds that illuminate the memories, and future plans held by the individual members of the family. The facial expressions, especially the mouths, of all the characters add to the immediacy and emotions of the moment and effectively enhance the engagement of the reader.
The supplementary Author’s Note comprises additional historical background, photographs of the family and the ship, and documents of the Fagan family. It includes the poignant photograph of the mended, faded red dictionary now residing on the author’s own desk. It also delineates the loss of the rest of the extended family in the Holocaust. The dictionary of the title, while not a major focus of the story, plays an invaluable role in this tale, cementing the past with the present by demonstrating Maurice’s perseverance and hopefulness and witnessing the strong familial connection of the author to his father’s story.
Fagan’s family story of survival and persistence continues to be relevant in today’s time of turmoil, unrest, and continued and renewed antisemitism and is highly recommend for elementary school and public library collections.
Maurice and His Dictionary: A True Story By Cary Fagan Art by Enzo Lord Mariano Owl Kids Books, 2020 ISBN: 9781771473231 Publisher Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11) Creator Representation: Jewish Character Representation: Canadian, Jewish
deep trenches of flux and discord in its wake. Inflation is sky high, entire neighborhoods are left jobless, and there isn’t enough food to go around.
The Girl Who Sang is a Holocaust survival memoir by Estelle Nadel and illustrator Sammy Savos that tells the former’s story of hiding from the Nazis and eventually fleeing her native Poland.
by and allow antisemitism, hate and prejudice to run rampant” (Introduction, xii).
The beautifully illustrated comic biography,
