From The Courage Of One . . .

Throughout human history, during the worst of times the best kind of individual will step forward to make every effort possible to fight against evil.  Sometimes this individual will shout from the rooftops rallying others to resist the attacks on fundamental human rights.  There are other people who work with more discretion.  While their efforts are not unknown by those they help, they accomplish great things in relative silence.  

One of these people was Nicholas Winton.  One of the people he helped was a child, Veruska Diamantova.  Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued (Norton Young Readers, an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company, January 26, 2021) written and illustrated by Peter Sis is their story.  It is a story of service and survival during the darkness of World War Two.

Nicky was born in 1909,

into a century full of promise. . . .

In 1938, Vera was ten years old.

She lived with her family in a small town near the big city of Prague.

Nineteen years separated the ages of these two people.  Nicky attended a school with students encouraged to pursue their wide range of interests.  As he grew up, Nicky was involved in banking.  He learned German and French and how to navigate multiple modes of transportation.  Nicky and his friends were concerned about the political climate in the late 1930s in Europe.  In December 1938, Nicky went to Prague to visit with a friend. 

Vera's family was Jewish, but in her small community all people were friends.  Her family spoke the Czech language.  In October 1938, the Nazis invaded Sudetenland, along the Czechoslovakian border.  Vera's parents heard of a man in Prague who was helping children escape from the Germans.  That man, an Englishman, was Nicky.

In England, children were welcome as refugees if they were under seventeen years old, had a family to care for them, and had transportation.  In Prague, from a hotel room, Nicky started his operation, taking pictures of children and keeping lists of their information.  He located trains.  Then he returned to London in January 1939.  He found families and prepared the necessary documentation.  In March 1939, the country of Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Germans.  It was time for Vera to leave.

It took three full days for the train to arrive in London carrying those seventy-six children.  Eight trains in total journeyed from Prague.  

Six hundred sixty-nine children of all ages reached London safely.

There was a ninth train set to leave Prague, but the Germans stormed into Poland.  That train with 250 children did not leave Prague.  Vera's cousins were on that train.  During the war Nicky was an ambulance driver.  Vera wrote in her diary.  After the war they both married and had families.  They both lived in England.  As Nicky aged, a discovery was made.  Fifty years had come and gone, but two separated by nineteen years in their ages were no longer apart on one important day.

As only a master wordsmith can, Peter Sis takes the two strands of the lives of Nicholas Winton and Veruska Diamantova and weaves them beautifully together.  Through meticulous research and superb pacing, we move from one to other as he recounts personal information about their lives.  Peter Sis makes a single statement reinforcing it with additional details.  Selected historical facts build toward the horrific situation in Czechoslovakia as the Germans advanced, adding urgency to Nicky's endeavors and the fate of Vera's life.  Here are two passages, one for Nicky and one for Vera.

Seventy-six children got on the train.

Vera tried not to cry.

She and the other children

did not know what lay ahead.

So they told stories

about the lives they left behind.

Nicky was out of time.

He put away his records.

Blue, a cool color, but also a color of calm creates an atmosphere on the front of the dust jacket.  Can you see Nicky framed by the trains and Big Ben?  Warmth is found in the outline of Vera and the pictures within that outline.  We see representations of her love of cats, her parents she never saw again, and the horse used in her parents work that she enjoyed feeding.  

To the left of the spine, on the back, is introductory text about the book.  In the middle, between the words, is the outline of a single face, Nicholas Winton's face.  Within that face are pictures of some of the children he saved.  On the cloth, textured book case in tan is a single element. A train locomotive is embossed in the lower, right-hand corner.  The opening and closing endpapers are a shade of tan.  On the title page is a map of Europe with a line drawn from London to Prague.

The exquisite, intricate images in each illustration by Peter Sis are remarkable.  Every one contributes to a stunning whole.  Each time you read this book you see something new, something valuable, something essential.  Each of these aspects widens the narrative.  There are pictures within pictures within pictures fashioning a sensory and private perspective.  On a single page, the illustration for the text noted above about Vera is set on a grid of six squares, fine blue lines on cream.  It is loosely circular.  Around the circle are tiny figures representing the children.  Inside the circle are five children.  On benches are four, seated two to a bench.  Vera, her back to us, is telling them a story.  On the top of her head are cat ears.  A cat tail extends from the back of her clothing. 

One of my many, many favorite illustrations is the second double-page picture in this book.  Across the top we see a building representing Nicky's school.  A large oval path across and around both pages shows various children walking with their pets.  Seven pigeons fly around a large depiction of Nicky in the center lawn area.  (He raised pigeons.)  Nicky is astride a large pigeon.  He is wearing clothing like a knight.  In his hand is a fencing sword.  He wears a helmet.  There are tiny portraits on his clothing.  He carries a shield with the words:

FIRST PUT NEEDS OF OTHERS.

In the center of his body, a knight is fighting a fire-breathing dragon.

This recounting of two lives is a distinguished presentation in words and pictures.  You will find yourself reading Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued written and illustrated by Peter Sis repeatedly.  Each time you will be moved by this man's significant triumphs in the face of evil.  The three-page author's note at the end is a must read. A list of resources is included. I can't imagine a personal or professional collection without this title.  I can't imagine teaching a history class without this book.  

To learn more about Peter Sis and his other work, you can visit his accounts on Facebook or Instagram.  The cover was revealed at Publishers Weekly through a wonderful conversation.  At author, reviewer, and blogger Julie Danielson's Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast this title is showcased.  At the publisher's website you can view interior pages.  At Matthew Winner's The Children's Book Podcast, Peter Sis speaks with him about this book.  For more information about Nicky, you can read Nicholas Winton, Rescuer of 669 Children From Holocaust Dies at 106 from The New York Times.  To discover more about Vera, you can read this interview found at The Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, The University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Seasonal Confection

Summer represents a host of memories and a time to conjure up more.  In our family it meant enjoying time in the gardens, softball games, fishing, boating, bike riding, grilling in the back yard, endless games of hide-and-seek at dusk, campfires and lots of ice cream.  Every single Sunday evening we would travel to a nearby town to get ice cream cones at the Dairy Queen across from the county fairgrounds.  On very special occasions we would make our own.

We had one of those old wooden hand crank makers.  We would put the ingredients inside the metal container, surround is with ice and salt and turn the handle until our arms felt like putty.  When it was finally set to a soft solid, we scooped it out and savored every single swallow.  To this day I've never tasted anything as scrumptious.

Even on chillier days, this season signals the time to try this tasty treat.  Ice Cream Summer (Scholastic Press, May 26, 2015) written and illustrated by Peter Sis is a boy's journey through learning and leisure.  It begins with a letter.

Dear Grandpa,
Thank you for your letter.
So far, it's been a delicious summer.

After receiving a letter from his grandpa promising a special trip, Joe begins to talk about his summer days.  He stays busy with visits to the beach with his family.  He's quick to mention it's not all fun in the sun.

He remembers to read daily.  New words are becoming part of his vocabulary.  His writing skills are growing.  In fact, he is making a book.

Addition, subtraction and story problems are practiced.  His day camp adventures include lessons in cartography and treks to new places.  The set of encyclopedias his grandpa gave him are put to use in exploring world and American history.

There is never a dull moment in this little guy's days.  He's excited about the new adventure he is sharing with his grandpa.  Where are they going you ask?  It's a surprise you'll have to discover for yourself.


With younger readers in mind, Peter Sis uses one or two conversational sentences per page.  Sometimes a sentence will work in tandem with a double-page illustration or will be spread over a page turn between two double-page illustrations.  The words are so carefully chosen you can almost hear the boy speaking to his grandpa.  What makes this title appeal to older readers is the additional explanatory text woven into the illustrations.  It's genuinely clever how the two work together to make a delightful whole.  Here is a sample.

Sometimes I trip over a simple equation.
But if I slow down, I always get it right.

Above in the illustration where the boy and his dog have tripped losing scoops of ice cream, we see

 10-7=?
3-2=?


What draws the reader to this title is the spirited uplifting color palette used throughout.  It's like Sis has captured summer and spread it over the pages.  Joe and his ever-present pooch pal on the front of the dust jacket announce their passion for ice cream.  Multiple flavors are spinning about them as a hint of the events to come.  On the back, to the left, a portion of an interior illustration is shown.  Joe is reading one of the encyclopedias while sitting in a hammock strung between two giant ice cream cones.

Darker shades of the hue used for Cream on the jacket cover the book case like a sunset.  On the front Joe and his dog are carrying ice cream cones piled high with a variety of scoops.  The opening and closing endpapers are the blue used for Ice on the dust jacket.  Rows of ice cream treats cover both in an identical pattern.

The spinning cones from the jacket become a rainbow surrounding the boy and his buddy on the page opposite the title.  Some of the text forms a large ice cream cone.  Every single illustration which follows elevates the boy's sentences using ice cream cones for everything possible.  In the first two-page illustration, Joe's bedroom, cones can be seen in every element.

With a page turn the family is at the beach.  Their umbrella is shaped like an ice cream treat.  Joe is making a sand castle extravaganza with ice cream sundaes.  The legs on a crab are cones.  The stacks on a ship are cones.  An airplane shaped like a cone is pulling a sign reading ice cream.  The narrative says one thing, the images say even more.

At times Sis will give us a panoramic view of Joe's activities.  Other times we zoom in close to see him intently at work.  Peter Sis's eyes on his characters are remarkable.  His details will have readers pausing, determined not to miss a single item.

One of my favorite illustrations is of Joe standing in front of the ice cream stand.  The flavors are listed on a board above the circles representing the tubs of ice cream.  His back is to us as he is trying to decide.  His dog is sitting next to him as the ice cream woman wearing bright yellow sneakers waits. This picture goes with the sentence

I am conquering big words like
tornado and explosion! 

These are part of the flavor names.


Ice Cream Summer written and illustrated by Peter Sis is simply delectable.  It is a delightful example of illustrations enlarging the narrative.  I can see using this for pure fun, to introduce a unit on seasons or a how-to on research.  It provides endless possibilities.  I most certainly guarantee you will be craving ice cream within a few page turns.

To learn more about Peter Sis please follow the link attached to his name to access his website.  

When Up There

Yesterday as Xena and I left the house for our morning walk, branches swaying on the maples and pines in a stiff breeze, a raven glided over our heads.  Taking advantage of the more active than normal air currents, it quickly swooped up and away with outstretched wings.  I couldn't help but wonder about the view up there.

I'll never forget the year I won a ride on an air balloon one of the teachers owned in the school where I was the teacher librarian.  My fear of heights vanished as I slowly moved over area landscapes marveling at the herd of deer in a wooded area caught unaware.  With this experience in my memory, for a brief moment I felt a kinship with the raven.

In the early 20th century the invention of the airplane and subsequent flights fueled desire to soar over land and sea in a young boy.  This man's life as a pilot and author is brilliantly and beautifully portrayed in The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Frances Foster Books, Farrar Straus Giroux) written and illustrated by the award-winning Peter Sis.  Like the raven Antoine De Saint-Exupery's life sailed on air, moving up and down but always rising again.

Long ago in France, at the turn of the century, a little boy was born to be an adventurer.

The middle child of five, Antoine had golden hair; earning him the family nickname of Sun King.  Before he turned five, his father passed away unexpectedly.  By the time he was twelve he had tried to fly by adding wings to his bicycle and finally convinced a pilot at a nearby air field to give him a ride in his plane.  For Antoine this experience would drive his waking dreams for the rest of his life.

Two years of required military service began as part of the ground crew in aviation.  Antoine was not deterred taking lessons on his own time.  Several years and various jobs later, he became excited by the news of a company starting up a mail delivery service by air. To his great joy, he was part of the first members of the Latecoere.

Working his way up through the ranks, Antoine was finally given the assignment for taking mail from France to Spain.  From there he would travel throughout Europe, along the West African coast, and even plot routes to South America.  For some time he was stationed at Cape Juby in Morocco.  The solitude of air flight and living in a shack by a desert inspired this pilot to write about his adventures flying.

Despite the company's closure, upon returning to France Antoine continued his exploits in the air and in writing.  With the advent of WWII, he was again flying to serve his country but the Germany occupation changed his status in the military and he fled to the United States for several years.  It was while he was in New York City, The Little Prince was written.  His love of country, his love of family, led Antoine De Saint-Exupery to do his heart's desire for the last time on July 31, 1944.

We have all heard the phrase lost in a book but at the conclusion of reading this title, I literally felt like I was traveling back to the here and now from the past.  The methods used by Peter Sis to acquaint readers as fully as possible within the pages of a picture book with this man's life are like piecing together a puzzle, a puzzle we are anxious to complete.  Along the bottom of each page is the running narrative.  Above this, woven into the illustrations, are some of the choicest bits of information about Antoine De Saint-Exupery's life Peter Sis uncovered through his research.  We get a true sense of this man's accomplishments and pursuits.  Here is an example of an interesting character trait, a habit he developed.

Antoine liked to read and write while flying.  In South America, he worked on his next book, Night Flight.  His cockpit was filled with crumpled paper.


The dust jacket, an illustration covering the front and the back, of sky and the rounded shape of land, with Saint-Exupery and the Little Prince flying together, is only the beginning of one masterful illustration after another. The endpapers in a rich royal blue with outlines in a lesser shade picture the two hemispheres of a globe with a plane circling across the top, going down, and then looping back up.  Print coming from the back creates a path.  On the closing endpaper the direction is reversed.

The exquisite intricacy of each illustration (all two pages with three exceptions) causes readers to pause, studying all the details and the text within each.  Sis uses circles to frame many of his smaller pictures found around the larger visuals.  There is meaning in every single element.

Shades of brown, blue, green, gray, golden yellow and black are predominant on all the pictures except for the portrayal of the German invasion of France during 1940 when red, black and gray are dominant.  The three wordless illustrations are breathtaking as is the final artwork.  One of my favorite visuals is of Antoine's return to France.  A light silhouette of his body, arms outstretched holding a paper as if he is flying, is superimposed on an map of Paris.  This, done in blue, is placed on a light green background.  Around this center item are fourteen circles of varied sizes with smaller pictures inside.  Tiny explanatory text follows their edges.  The layout and design are impeccable.


No one tells or illustrates the story of another's life like Peter Sis.  The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine De Saint-Exupery is a remarkable book.  Please share it with someone as soon as you can.  Then go do it again.  There is a selected bibliography as part of the verso.

I have embedded a link to Peter Sis's website in his name.  This link takes you to the publisher's website so you can look at some of the pages from the book.  You will certainly enjoy this interview, In The Cockpit, Gazing At Stars: Saint-Exupery's Life In Pictures, with Peter Sis at NPR's All Things Considered.
Update: Peter Sis:  Why I made The Pilot and The Little Prince - in pictures.



Visit your public library or local independent book store to get your copy of this book.  I purchased my copy from McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey.


I am happy to participate each week in the 2014 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge hosted by Alyson Beecher at Kid Lit Frenzy.  Be sure to check out the books highlighted there by other bloggers.

Cherished Creatures

Within a heartbeat they can tell you.  Not only do they have an answer but they want to know what yours is.  No matter how many books the library may have or resources you provide, it's simply never enough.  Truthfully over the years I have learned more than I ever knew I wanted to know about a large variety of animals because of students' quests to discover everything about their favorite animal, domestic and wild.

The extent of their interest is not limited to facts either; each having an uncanny ability in their individual style to recreate their animal visually.  How exciting for all of us that Eric Carle and thirteen other illustrators decide to share their choices.  What's Your Favorite Animal? (Henry Holt and Company, January 2014) not only answers the question but entertains with text and pictures by each.

I have always liked all animals.  

So begins the story Eric Carle tells of his cat who liked to chase and fetch a string bean until she decided it was better off tucked away from view.  A ladder would definitely be needed to see eye to eye with Tom Lichtenheld's animal friend after a trip to Africa or the zoo.  You will be hard pressed not to gasp and utter yikes after seeing the smile on Mo Willems' crawling critter's face.

A Christmas tradition with a happy ending, especially for the main course, is a tale with timeless appeal as revealed by Peter Sis.  Giving us a whole new perspective on one of nature's slowest movers, Chris Raschka reminds us patience has great rewards.  Nick Bruel's Bad Kitty is up to his typical tricks.  Could it be because of a favorite animal choice?

Let's see now.  Who could possibly like a high-jumping bunny, these-pillows-are-my-spot dog, or a boastful elephant?  It might be Rosemary Wells, Lane Smith, Jon Klassen, Susan Jeffers, or Peter McCarty?  Or perhaps one of them has voiced their love of a duck (without a hat) or a herd of wild white horses?

A memory of cows coming to life at night, a kinship felt with penguins and a colorful connection to leopards fill the pages by Lucy Cousins, Steven Kellogg and Erin Stead. (No, I did not put them in order.) Just when you think you might suffer from happiness overload due to the wonderful words and colorful pictures on these pages, the final two host childhood pictures of each artist with a short biographical sketch.  Who could ask for anything more?


An amusing incident, a whimsical poem, a message of hope, personal reflections from now and then, and tales full of hilarity reach out, pulling readers into the realms of these fourteen individuals who, fortunately for us, populate the children's literature community.  All the wit and wonder we love about their work is condensed into these two page spreads; how they choose to speak about their favorite animal is a direct reflection of them as authors and illustrators.  You will find yourself alternating between a slow smile, a giggle, a guffaw, a sigh, and nod of understanding more than once. These fourteen people say much with few words.


Eric Carle's notable cut-paper collage decorates the front dust jacket with a list of the contributors and their animals on the back.  Upon removing the jacket readers see all fourteen creatures spread across both sides of the cover with the artists' signatures next to their work.  The pristine white background makes all the elements pop off the pages.  Sunny golden opening and closing endpapers brushed in paint announce the total joy to be found in this book.

Even without their name as part of the text or a signature within the illustration, each visual clearly identifies the creator; vividly displaying their unique styles and mediums.  The deft paper cuts for a cat's fur, the fluffy cloud cleverly becoming a beehive hairdo for the ruby-lipped giraffe, the loose swirls of orange, amber and blue making a home for a snail, small delicate lines and softened brush strokes bringing the essence of penguins to the page or cow paintings papering a wall as a boy dreams one into life, not only feature an animal but the considerable talents each illustrator brings to this book and everything they do.  Every single one is a masterpiece.


This variety in selected animals, narratives and illustrators is exactly what makes What's Your Favorite Animal? by Eric Carle and Friends a true treasure that everyone should read and own.  It's like holding an art gallery in your hands.  The end flap states:

All royalties from this book will be donated to The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art which was founded by Eric and Barbara Carl in 2002.  

Links to each of the contributors' websites (when possible) have been placed in their names above.  Follow this link to the publisher's website for a peek inside this title.  Enjoy the videos collected by some of the artists.  If you have other videos you would like me to include feel free to leave a link in the comments below.