The Night Crossing

by Karen Ackerman

Overview

It's hard to leave your home and friends, but the Nazis have invaded Clara's native Austria, and her Jewish family is no longer safe. Clara and her family take only what they can carry and travel by night to the Swiss border, where they hope to escape to freedom. Soldiers are everywhere, adn it is Clara's heroism that carries the family across teh border, thier lives adn few precious posessions intact.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307770196
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	11/24/2010
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	64
Lexile:	960L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Karen Ackerman has written over 25 books for young readers. Her books have won many awards including ABA Pick of the List, ALA Notable Books, Children's Book Council/NCSS Notable Books in the Field of Social Studies, New York Library Best List, Horn Book's Best, and School Library Journal Best Books. Her picture-book Song and Dance Man, illustrated by Stephen Gammell, won the 1989 Caldecott Medal.

Editorial Reviews

Set in Austria in 1938, this tale of a Jewish family's escape to Switzerland, said PW, ``has plenty of heartstopping moments... [but] the historical details are treated lightly.'' Ages 7-11. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 3-4-Clara treasures the two antique dolls that came with her grandmother when the family fled from the pogroms in Russia to Austria. Now the family is planning to escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and Clara intends to take them with her. When Mama sews her treasured silver candlesticks into the petticoat of her oldest daughter, they make noise and Papa is afraid they will clank and alert the border guards. Clara then suggests hiding the candlesticks in the dolls' straw stuffing since this is their second ``night crossing,'' and they are not afraid. This is a suspenseful escape story written for transitional readers. The danger is clear but not belabored. The stress is on the family's closeness and courage. The dolls and candlesticks are tangible representations of continuity and tradition, which comfort and sustain the family. An epilogue reveals the fate of the Jews who did not escape, including Clara's grandmother. Ackerman's writing is clear and direct; despite its simplicity, it is never banal. This is an excellent fictional introduction to the Holocaust that is slightly easier to read, but for the same audience as, Claire Bishop's Twenty and Ten (Peter Smith, 1984). It will also be a good choice for less proficient older readers wanting World War II novels.-Louise L. Sherman, Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ

School Library Journal

This simple docu-novel about a Jewish child escaping from the Nazis in 1938 introduces the Holocaust to young readers. On the first page, Clara overhears her parents whispering that they must leave their home in Innsbruck, Austria, "before it is too late." Then we see why: Clara and her older sister are chased home by a group of screaming anti-Semitic kids, including her former best friend. All around them, Jewish businesses are being vandalized, their owners sent to camps, their homes burglarized. Clara's parents sell their precious belongings and cut off their yellow stars, and the family steals away in the night. Of course, they are nearly caught, but they bribe and trick and make it past the border guards and walk over the mountains to Switzerland. There's little of the immediacy and depth here of the best personal accounts for middle readers, such as Ida Vos' "Hide and Seek" (1991) or Isabella Leitner's "Big Lie" (1992); and the massacre and brutality are only hinted at. Rather, Ackerman's brief chapter-book, in large, clear type and with illustrations (unseen in galley), gives younger kids a first look at the essentials of what it was like to be an ordinary child in danger at that terrible time.

Hazel Rochman

"An excellent fictional introduction to the Holocaust."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher