My stepdaughter Becky, who lives in Tennessee, had a baby, Madeline, in January. Becky is such a joyful and calm mother. And Madeline is–objectively of course!–one of the world’s cutest, loveliest, most alert and thoughtful and interesting and adorable babies ever. Here I am holding her at five days old.
Whenever we go to visit, I bring Madeline books. She has many times her body weight in books already!
Madeline is a lucky baby, surrounded by love. She is especially fortunate to have three adoring cousins, ages six to eleven, living just a few blocks away. Here’s Becky with Madeline and Madeline’s three cousins:
When the cousins came over recently, the youngest, Annika, went into Madeline’s room and pulled out a book that looked interesting, and came out into the living room and asked her grandpa to read it.
Madeline’s bookshelf is already nearly collapsing under the weight of all her books! But I’m happy to say that the book Annika chose was my latest picture book, MATZAH BELOWSTAIRS. I had given Madeline one of my precious advance copies. And after the book had been read to Annika once, she wanted to hear it again, right away!
But here’s the surprising thing. Annika isn’t Jewish. She’s never been to a seder or tasted matzah. She’s from a seriously Christian, homeschooling family. And she loved this book about a Jewish mouse family at Passover.
We flew to Tennessee this week to visit Madeline again on our spring vacation. Annika’s family came over too. Annika and I had a long conversation about books. And Annika shyly and solemnly told me how much she loved MATZAH BELOWSTAIRS and asked me to read it to her again. It was the first time I had read it aloud, so this was a special moment for me.
So how did Annika enjoy and understand my book, although it was about a Jewish holiday? The way we all enjoy and learn from books about things that are new to us. I wrote the book carefully so that it could make sense both to children who knew about Passover and to those who didn’t. The possibly new words–like “matzah” and “seder”–make sense it context. Miriam loves “flat, crunchy matzah.” Mama Mouse laments that without matzah the mouse family won’t be able to celebrate Passover because they won’t have “anything to remind us of the time our mouse ancestors left Egypt in too big a hurry for the bread to rise!” The dad of the human boy in the story, Eli, wraps half of a piece of matzah in a napkin and tells Eli that he’s going to hide the “afikomen.” But will Eli find it before Miriam Mouse does?
Annika understood the story perfectly. And now she knows more about the Jewish culture and religion than she did before she read the book. I really hope other non-Jewish kids will enjoy it too!
So when is a Jewish children’s book not (only) a Jewish children’s book? When it’s an appealing story! Here are two others that I have personally seen non-Jewish kids enjoying. Eric Kimmel’s The Chanukkah Guest and Laurel Snyder’s Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher. Have fun teaching your kids about new cultures and religions and diversifying your children’s bookshelves!
When I get the few advance copies of a book from a publisher, I think hard about what it is best to do with them. When the advance copies of Matzah Belowstairs, my latest book, came out, I knew that one copy would be going to my niece Chloe–because there was a little surprise for her in the book.
One of the mouse cousins in the book is named Chloe!
Here’s Chloe with me when she was smaller. She always loved having stories read to her–and reading children’s books aloud is always a great pleasure for me, her Auntie Susan.
Chloe is beyond picture book age now. But she always reads my books with enthusiasm–so I enjoyed slipping her name into Matzah Belowstairs.
And here’s the surprising thing. On the day I visited her and gave her a copy of the book, look what she was wearing. Black and white stripes, just like Chloe Mouse in the book!
Coincidence? Or something more? You decide!
(And, by the way, that’s Chloe’s painting on the wall behind her. Beautiful.)
My thirteen-year-old niece, Chloe Meyer-Gehrke, has read my novels inspired by my father’s World War II experiences. She also came to my book release parties and sat in the front row!
She got interested in the way Jewish refugees were kept out of the United States during World War II.
Recently, for a school project, Chloe made an impressive video about that subject.
It is quite something, as my Dad would have said! She did a remarkable amount of historical research. And she found some great video clips!
You can also hear my Dad talking in the video. He’s talking about a real-life incident. It’s one I included in Skating With the Statue of Liberty. You’ll recognize it if you read that novel.
Here’s Chloe with her grandpa a few years back:
She’s bigger now! One of my great pleasures is looking for books for her, especially in used book sales, where you can find great books, often in terrific condition. Here she is, with some books I sent her recently:
But if my Dad and his family hadn’t been able to enter the United States and start anew, none of us would have been here.
Not my Dad. Not any of those grandchildren with him in the photo up above. Not Chloe. Not me.
It’s so important to let people whose lives are in danger in their home countries come to America.
It is a happy, light-hearted story about a mouse family that needs matzah for Passover. They live under the floorboards beneath the apartment where the human Winklers live. And luckily the Winklers are a very messy family! Usually they can be counted on to leave bits of food around. But this year they have started keeping their matzah in a tin. How can Miriam Mouse bring home any matzah for her family’s Passover celebration?
Will children who don’t celebrate Passover understand the book? I think they will. I deliberately wrote it so that words like “matzah” and “seder” make sense in context. There’s also an author’s note in the back giving a very brief explanation of Passover.
So the book should work well for you if you are a parent or teacher wanting to fill your book shelves with books celebrating the holidays of many different cultures.
It is always an exciting moment when my box of author copies of a book arrives! Here it is, just opened, on my table!
It is thrilling for me as an author to see how an illustrator, in this case, the talented Mette Engell, has visualized the story. I especially love the way she divides the page so that children can see the humans above the floorboards and the mice below at the same time. It’s pretty irresistible!
It happens to be snowing here in Massachusetts as I write this. But spring is coming! Happy spring and happy spring holidays from me, the messy Winklers, and the Mouse family!
I found out this morning that NEW SHOES is a nominee for the South Dakota Prairie Bloom Award for 2017-18. This means that it has been chosen as one of ten best books for this age group and children all over South Dakota will be reading and discussing it in class next year. What a wonderful thing.
How nice to start off my writing day with this news! State awards make me so happy. And often they have such great names, names I know now that my books have been nominated for them. Illinois has the Monarch Award–named after the butterfly.
Nebraska has the Golden Sower! It’s the perfect name for this agricultural state, and it makes me think of Willa Cather’s novels and of a farmer scattering seed.
I’m so happy that they “Read On!” in Wisconsin!
And nothing could be prettier than the name for the South Dakota Award, “Prairie Bloom”! On this rainy Massachusetts morning, I certainly wish I could see the prairie blooming in South Dakota, a state I have not visited yet!.
I looked at photographs to find one of the prairie blooming in South Dakota to add to this blog post, and wow! I have GOT to go visit Badlands National Park in South Dakota! Let’s keep funding our precious National Parks.
A Guest Post by Educator Catherine Maryse Anderson
Black Radishes, the novel that precedes Skating with the Statue of Liberty, offers readers a look into the everyday people who risked their lives for the French Resistance. Readers of both books will marvel at the bravery and cleverness of Gustave’s friend Nicole, who, with her father, helps move Jews and others out of France’s Nazi-occupied zone.
The French Resistance movement is an umbrella term which refers to numerous anti-German resistance movements that were based within France during World War II. While groups and individuals had different strategies and leadership, they were all opposed to the installation of the collaborative Franco-German government in Vichy France from 1940-1944 and sought to end German occupation of France and beyond.
Resistance members were men and women of all faiths and economic backgrounds. They maintained underground newspapers, provided safe houses and transport for Jews, delivered valuable information to the Allies, and interfered with the Nazis’ ability to communicate and disperse supplies.
Children like Nicole did play a role in the Resistance. Jean-Jacques Auduc, celebrated as France’s youngest Resistance member, carried messages in the handlebars of his bicycle starting when he was 11 years old. His whole family played a role in the Resistance. Even Jean-Jacques’ grandmother was a traveling radio operator for the movement. By the time Jean-Jacques was 12, he was actively spying and committing acts of sabotage.
Jean-Jacques Auduc Dossier
In Skating with the Statue of Liberty, Gustave writes letters to France not only to maintain his friendship with Nicole, but also in hopes of discovering news of his Jewish friend Marcel, whose fate is unknown. Gustave asks his father, “Nicole’s father is in the Resistance…They helped us, so why couldn’t they help Marcel?” (p. 41) Gustave is haunted by the news coming from Europe. He is terrified that Marcel is among those captured, imprisoned, and possibly murdered by the Nazis.
At the close of the novel, Gustave receives a cryptic letter from Nicole that reads, “our friend, you know who I mean, he is playing hide-and-seek. He is very good at hiding. Robert is drawing something on the pavement…” (p. 282). When Gustave figures out the riddle, he realizes that this is “a secret message, hidden from the Nazi censors, from the prying eyes that would look over the letter before it left Occupied France. ‘He is very good at hiding.’ She was telling him that Marcel was in hiding! Marcel was alive!” (pp. 282-3)
According to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, “approximately seven thousand Jewish children in France were saved during the Holocaust due to the courageous efforts of various groups, and brave individuals too many to mention.” From individual families who took in a single child to heroes like Madame Germaine Chesneau of Chateau de Peyrins, who housed 108 Jewish children, citizens across France helped children escape, obtain forged papers and form new identities, and hide throughout the war.
As the war raged on, the Resistance movement gathered momentum and resources. They mounted attacks against the Germans, helped Allied airmen get to safety, and provided increased intelligence to Allied forces that eventually led to victory. The world owes a great debt to these men, women, and even children who risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors and to defeat the Nazis through stealth, intelligence, and fortitude.
Do you think you would have been as brave as Nicole to share stories written in a secret way to share information? How do you think that Nicole’s efforts helped Gustave and Marcel? What are other ways that you know of that people have been part of resistance movements either in history or in stories? What are some of the common themes of resistance?
Messages in Handlebars: the Youngest Resistance Fighter by Kendrick Kirk (Author), Jean-Jacques Auduc (Narrator), Claire Kirk (Translator). Published by Kendrick Kirk, 2011.
The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco. Published by Penguin Random House, 2000.
Catherine Maryse Anderson has an extensive 15-year background as a public school literacy and humanities teacher in Portland, Maine. She spent two years as a literacy coach for Portland Public Schools and led statewide symposiums on building educator capacity for cross-cultural competency in the classroom from early childcare through college. She was a runner up for the Teaching Tolerance Educator of the Year. Catherine has been involved in ongoing performing arts projects for twenty years and is a published poet and essayist.
A Guest Post by Educator Catherine Maryse Anderson
In the final chapter of Skating with the Statue of Liberty, Gustave and September Rose get “into a long line of kids carrying crates and bags full of flattened cans” (p. 285). When they reach the front of the line, they are thanked for “helping our boys overseas.” Like the characters at Battery Park that day, Americans of all ages took part in a massive campaign to support the war effort. Citizens saved and collected metal scraps to “become bombs to defeat the Axis of Evil abroad!”
Gum wrappers; tin foil balls; metal cans; and copper, iron, and tin scraps were all in demand. Children would go from door to door in urban and rural communities asking everyone for contributions. Who didn’t have an old broken rake, a garbage pail lid, or a baking dish to add to the cause? Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops were often leaders of the drives. No one was too young to do their part!
Boy Scouts Gathering Scraps in Lincoln, Nebraska, 1943.
It is not entirely clear how many munitions, bombs, weapons, tanks, planes, or naval destroyers were actually fabricated from these collected metals. Regardless of their physical utility, the drives had an undeniable psychological purpose — gathering scrap metal increased morale. By giving people at home a sense that they were contributing to the war effort, they felt a deeper commitment to the war and the citizens fighting abroad. Recall when September Rose’s grandmother in Skating With the Statue of Liberty pulled down her beloved metal bird sculptures and gave them to September Rose to donate as a “way to bring Dad home” (p. 287). Her son’s safe return was entirely out of her hands, but the successful metal drive propaganda made September Rose’s grandmother feel like she was truly assisting.
World War II Propaganda Poster
In addition to scrap metal, patriotic Americans were encouraged to collect and donate rubber, to conserve fuel by carpooling, and to plant “victory gardens” to feed their families and save resources. Each of these efforts were thought to contribute to the Allies’ chances of victory abroad.
How do current school and home recycling programs help students feel like they are working toward a greater cause? How has the modern school gardening effort taught students about self-sufficiency and healthy eating? What drives have students contributed to in times of crisis? How could classrooms and readers help their communities and the larger world through action?
Image 1: Boy Scouts Gathering Scraps in Lincoln, Nebraska, 1943. Source: Nebraska Studies.
Image 2: WWII Propaganda Poster. Source: Southern Metal Recycling Inc.
Cat’s son, Marcel, visiting the Statue of Liberty!
Catherine Maryse Anderson has an extensive 15-year background as a public school literacy and humanities teacher in Portland, Maine. She spent two years as a literacy coach for Portland Public Schools and led statewide symposiums on building educator capacity for cross-cultural competency in the classroom from early childcare through college. She was a runner up for the Teaching Tolerance Educator of the Year. Catherine has been involved in ongoing performing arts projects for twenty years and is a published poet and essayist.
Susan Lynn Meyer’s novel Skating With the Statue of Liberty opens in 1942 on board a transport ship bound for America. Gustave and his family are on that ship to escape the persecution of Jews in their native France. As has been the case for immigrants and refugees arriving to the United States throughout history, their expectations and the reality of life in the United States differ. Gustave expects he is leaving anti-Semitism and prejudice behind in Europe.
Anti-Semitism, or hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group (Source: Merriam Webster), has plagued the world for more than 2,000 years. Jews arriving in the United States in the 1940s found that America was not free of this blight.
Gustave’s family encounters anti-Semitism in both subtle and overt ways. On their very first train ride to New York, Gustave’s hope of living without racial and religious prejudice is shattered:
“Refugees,” Gustave heard a man say. Then from behind him, he heard a woman utter a one-syllable word. It was the first time he had heard the word in English, yet somehow he knew what it meant. He knew that tone of voice. It was the same tone of voice in which he had heard certain people in France hiss “juifs,” the same tone of voice in which Germans spat out “Juden.” He hadn’t thought he would hear that particular mixture of repulsion and smug superiority here in America. But he had. The woman had muttered “Jews.” —Skating With the Statue of Liberty, p. 28.
As you are reading the novel, notice when the author depicts other anti-Semitic encounters. Is such prejudice exhibited at Gustave’s school or in the family’s search for housing? Have you experienced subtle or outright hostility directed at your cultural background or religious beliefs? If you haven’t had that experience, how does the author help you to understand what it feels like?
Anti-Semitic Poster Equating Jews with Communism, 1939
While the origins of racism and prejudice are deeply complex, anti-Semitism in the U.S. in the 1940s was fueled by unjust propaganda from Europe. For example, after World War I, the German government claimed that the Communist Jews, acting as spies, caused the Germans to lose the war. The Germans warned that the Jews, and thus Communism, could take over Europe. This fear of the spread of Communism (a form of government that was considered a great threat to democracy) was echoed by xenophobes in the United States. Anti-communism fed anti-Semitism.
Fake Cover of New York City’s PM Newspaper Warns of Possible Future German Takeover
Others in America feared that Hitler’s mad conquest of Europe would expand to an attempted takeover of the United States. Propaganda and rumors were spread that Jewish refugees in the United States were acting as German spies in exchange for protection of their families in Europe. Anti-German feelings fed anti-Semitism.
Other Americans believed, as they have with every new population of refugees, that the new arrivals would take away housing or jobs from long-term Americans. Anti-immigration feelings feed anti-Semitism.
Looking back, it is hard to believe that anti-Semitic Americans were not jolted out of their xenophobia in the face of the extreme anti-Semitic atrocities being committed against the Jews in Europe. In the early 1940s, however, many Americans did not know about the Holocaust.
In 1942 the United States Department of Justice withheld a report from the World Jewish Congress about the Nazis’ threat to annihilate the Jews. Fearing that this horror could be only a rumor and that the United States would have no success in a large-scale rescue attempt, the government did not act and did not inform citizens. It was not until 1944 that President Roosevelt, under pressure from his own government and the American Jewish community, took public action to rescue European Jews.
If the U.S. government had shared the information from the World Jewish Congress with the American people in 1942, do you think the U.S. would have acted sooner to aid the Jews? How would this information have changed the perception and welcome of refugees like Gustave and his family? How does their experience compare to that of those seeking asylum in the United States today?
How can extreme expressions or acts of prejudice make people reassess their own views? Have you ever shared an opinion with someone, but changed your opinion when you saw that person do something you did not like or respect?
Image 1: Anti-semitic Poster Equating Jews with Communism. United States, 1939
Source: Jewish War Veterans Museum
Image 2: Fake Cover of New York City’s PM Newspaper Warns of Possible Future German Takeover
Source: Untapped Cities
About the Educator: Catherine Maryse Anderson has an extensive 15-year background as a public school literacy and humanities teacher in Portland, Maine. She spent two years as a literacy coach for Portland Public Schools and led statewide symposiums on building educator capacity for cross-cultural competency in the classroom from early childcare through college. She was a runner up for the Teaching Tolerance Educator of the Year. Catherine has been involved in ongoing performing arts projects for twenty years and is a published poet and essayist.
A Guest Post by Educator Catherine Maryse Anderson
Double V Logo
Today we are surrounded by logos and slogans designed to capture our attention, draw us to a product, or encourage our participation in a group or movement. Shoes and other items of clothing often have a symbol instead of a name, and phrases like “Yes We Can” or “Kinder Gentler Nation” are associated with presidential campaigns.
In Skating with the Statue of Liberty, we learn about the Double V through September Rose and her brother, Alan. The Double V as a symbol and slogan was started in 1942 by the , one of the era’s most prominent African American Newspapers, also known as “The Black Press.” Regional and national newspapers today feature stories about all the people in the region and the country, but in 1942, the United States was still a very segregated country. As a result, African American communities relied on the Black Press to ensure their news was told and shared.
WWII Propaganda Poster
In World War II, great numbers of African Americans were asked to fight for freedom against the “Axis of Evil” abroad, only to return home to a country still very much in the grips of fundamentally racist Jim Crow-era beliefs. Despite risking their lives for this country, when they returned home, they did not have the ability to make the same kinds of choices about their lives as their fellow white soldiers did. In the spirit of naming this bind, and trying to help African Americans write themselves into their country’s history in a patriotic and emboldened way, James G. Thompson, a 26-year-old African American man, introduced the Double V concept in a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Courier. His voice is considered one of the main sparks of the Double V campaign.
In it, Thompson wrote: “Being an American of dark complexion and some 26 years, these questions flash through my mind: ‘Should I sacrifice my life to live half American?’ ‘Will things be better for the next generation in the peace to follow?’ ‘The V for victory sign is being displayed prominently in all so-called democratic countries, which are fighting for victory…Let we colored Americans adopt the double V for a double victory. The first V for victory over our enemies from without, the second V for victory over our enemies from within.” —James G. Thompson, 1942, Source: Learner.org
[Historical Note: The term “African American” was not used to describe people of color until the 1970s. In the 1940s, Black people most often described themselves as “Negro” or as “colored.”]
Shortly thereafter, other African American newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, The Baltimore Afro-American, and The New Amsterdam in New York City carried stories brought into focus by the Double V campaign. Stories expressed outrage about the treatment of African American soldiers abroad and citizens at home.
Participants in the Double V Campaign
The Double V campaign aimed to change the way African American soldiers were seen and celebrated both at home and abroad. Each week Black Press newspapers featuring the Double V image would relate stories about African American war heroes and African American war effort volunteers at home and would encourage readers to buy war bonds. Often papers included endorsements by political figures and celebrities to call more attention to the cause. Double V Clubs were formed to gather items to send to soldiers overseas; to meet with businessmen about nondiscriminatory hiring practices; and when conversation failed, to organize demonstrations, as Alan and his contemporaries did in Skating with the Statue of Liberty. But on the other side of this was a growing frustration that not enough was being done fast enough. Tension in African American communities began to mount, leading to large-scale riots in Chicago and New York.
The Inkspots Promote Double V
Interestingly, the Black Press was often caught in the middle, fearing that if they did not condemn the riots or protests, then all African Americans might be seen as taking away attention and resources from the United States to defeat of the Axis powers abroad. But what the Double V campaign gave way to was a deepened sense of purpose and voice in many communities, leading to Freedom Rallies in the late forties and several long-term changes, like the breaking of the color barrier in sports like baseball in 1947 with Jackie Robinson and President Truman’s Executive Order to desegregate the Armed Forces in July, 1948.
What is a cause or movement that you believe deeply in? What was it about the slogans or logos they employed that caught your attention or helped you to understand their message?
The Double V Campaign in NYC
What is it about the Double V campaign that may have particularly appealed to Alan in Skating with the Statue of Liberty? What is it about being part of this movement that might have felt dangerous to September Rose’s grandmother? Have you ever wanted to participate in a cause or movement that someone else did not want you to be part of? How did you handle that? Do you think Alan made the right choice?
Image 2: WWII Propaganda Poster (Source: The National WWII Museum: New Orleans)
Image 3: Participants in the Double V Campaign (Source: National Archives)
Image 4: The Inkspots Promote Double V (Source: Memorial Hall Museum’s American Centuries)
Image 5: The Double V Campaign in NYC (Source: The History of NYC)
Catherine’s son Marcel visiting the Statue of Liberty!
About the Educator: Catherine Maryse Anderson has an extensive 15-year background as a public school literacy and humanities teacher in Portland, Maine. She spent two years as a literacy coach for Portland Public Schools and led statewide symposiums on building educator capacity for cross-cultural competency in the classroom from early childcare through college. She was a runner up for the Teaching Tolerance Educator of the Year. Catherine has been involved in ongoing performing arts projects for twenty years and is a published poet and essayist.
Today, we have something special: a guest post about SKATING WITH THE STATUE OF LIBERTY from a teacher from Portland, Maine! Thank you, Catherine!
IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS DURING WORLD WAR II
By Educator Catherine Mayrse Anderson
Anne Frank, famous the world over for the diary and legacy she left behind, was born the same year as author Susan Lynn Meyer’s father. Susan’s father, the model for Gustave in the novel Skating with the Statue of Liberty, was granted refuge in America along with his family. Anne Frank and her family were denied. How does immigration policy in America in the 1930s and 1940s continue to to have an impact on our culture?
To emigrate means to leave one’s own country to settle in another country permanently. During World War II, more than 340,000 Jews were forced by the German Nazis to emigrate from Germany and Austria. Others fled or attempted to flee from countries the Nazis invaded.
The novel Skating with the Statue of Liberty opens in January of 1942. Gustave and his family are fleeing France, which is under partial German occupation. Gustave leaves behind his best friend Marcel, who he fears has been taken by the Nazis. (To learn more about Marcel and what Gustave’s family faced in Nazi-occupied France, read Susan Lynn Meyer’s earlier novel, Black Radishes.)
Nazi propaganda claimed that the Jewish people were an “alien threat.”
Illustration from an antisemitic children’s primer. The sign reads “Jews are not wanted here.” Germany, 1936.
They sought to remove that contrived threat by any means necessary. Jews who fled their home countries because of this severe persecution and the threat of imprisonment in internment camps (camps the world would later learn were death camps) were refugees, or people seeking safety. The United Nations defines a refugee as someone who fled his or her home and country owing to “a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”
Refuge is another word for safety. Are refugees always safe?
When Gustave and his family left France to live and practice their beliefs freely, they arrived in the United States as immigrants. An immigrant is someone who comes to live permanently in a foreign country. As a Jewish child, traveling to America from France during World War II, Gustave was, therefore, not just an immigrant, but also a refugee.
Passengers aboard the St. Louis
While a few families, like Gustave’s, were allowed into the United States, many more were denied entry. Already, by June of 1939, more than 300,000 Jewish immigrants had applied to enter this country. Most of them were not allowed in because a growing sense of xenophobia (fear of foreigners) led the United States to maintain low quotas for entering visas. The Great Depression and the scarcity jobs at home added to the growing concern that allowing displaced persons from abroad into the United States would be disastrous. The most tragic of these episodes was when more than 900 refugees fleeing Nazi Germany aboard TheSt. Louis were denied entry to Cuba and the United States. They were forced to return to Europe after President Roosevelt gave into exaggerated claims that Jewish refugees were potentially Nazi spies and would be putting United States citizens at risk. Many of the passengers later perished in the Holocaust.
Later, when the full extent of the Nazi regime’s crimes were acknowledged, more than 400,000 displaced persons from World War II were granted visas to enter the United States permanently between 1943 and 1945. More than 96,000 of these new Americans were Holocaust survivors.
Throughout history, people have immigrated by choice, or against their will as refugees from one country to another. What are some examples of the immigrant experience that you are familiar with in your own family history, or that you have learned about in literature or the performing arts?
Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, 2013
Approximately 65.3 million people are displaced somewhere in the world today. 21.3 million of those people have registered as refugees. What countries are people fleeing from? Why? What are the similarities and differences between this refugee crisis and the crisis of the Jews in the 1930s-1940s?
Like Gustave, Susan Lynn Meyer’s father was a Jewish refugee from France. If Susan Lynn Meyer’s family had not been given entry into the U.S., what could have been the impact? Would you be reading and sharing the novel Skating with the Statue of Liberty? What are some of the gifts that you and your family bring to your community that we would never know about if you were not allowed to live here?
Image 1: Illustration from an antisemitic children’s primer. The sign reads “Jews are not wanted here.” Germany, 1936.
Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=0&MediaId=605
Image 2: Passengers aboard the St. Louis
Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Dr. Liane Reif-Lehrer
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=10005139&MediaId=1029
Image 3: Syrian refugee children in a camp in Lebanon, 2013. Source: CNN: //www.cnn.com/2013/09/08/health/gupta-child-refugees-syria-lebanon/
Catherine’s photo is of her own son Marcel visiting the Statue of Liberty!
About the Educator: Catherine Maryse Anderson has an extensive 15-year background as a public school literacy and humanities teacher in Portland, Maine. She spent two years as a literacy coach for Portland Public Schools and led statewide symposiums on building educator capacity for cross-cultural competency in the classroom from early childcare through college. She was a runner up for the Teaching Tolerance Educator of the Year. Catherine has been involved in ongoing performing arts projects for twenty years and is a published poet and essayist.
So the book should work well for you if you are a parent or teacher wanting to fill your book shelves with books celebrating the holidays of many different cultures.
