ESCAPE TO THE FOREST

PLB 0-06-028521-4 From Radin (All Joseph Wanted, 1991), a short, accessible novel that could serve as a introduction to the realities of the Holocaust. Sarah, a young Jewish girl, lives in eastern Poland, where the Russians have taken control of her town and imposed harsh restrictions. The family must celebrate Hanukkah in secret; Lili, a girl from western Poland whom the family shelters, is arrested. Eventually Lili is released, but when the Germans attack they force the family into a small ghetto. Jews are being murdered in the streets, and Sarah’s brother, David, knows that a family, the Bielskis, have escaped into the forest. Sarah’s mother, believing that life in the forest would be worse, refuses to leave the ghetto even after the family survives a selection by the Germans. When ordered onto a train that will take them to Treblinka, her father tells Sarah to leave; she must find the Bielskis in the forest in order to survive. The fact that this is a true story lends the narrative further immediacy and suspense. Compelling reading for the young. (b&w illustrations) (Fiction. 8-10)