Vroege RecensentenIrene N. Watts

Recommended for ages 8 to 12. Life for Jewish families in 1938 Berlin is increasingly difficult. Neighborhood shops and synagogues are looted and burned, homes are invaded by the Gestapo, Jewish children are expelled from school, their fathers and brothers imprisoned without cause. With even darker times on the horizon, parents are searching for an escape route for their children. On the morning of December 1st, 1938, eleven-year-old Marianne Kohn and seven-year-old Sophie Mandel meet on a train, the first Kindertransport that will take children to safety in England. But what will happen when they arrive? Who will be their guardians? Will they be able to learn the customs and language of their new country? Will they ever see their parents again? The Kindertransport saved almost ten thousand children before the outbreak of World War II. The three critically acclaimed, award-winning novels in Escape from Berlin — Good-bye Marianne, Remember Me, and Finding Sophie — poignantly chronicles what happens to Marianne and Sophie as they grow up away from home. December 1, 2013, marks the 75th Anniversary of the first Kindertransport.

Recommended for ages 10 and up. Touched by Fire, Irene N. Watt's exquisite new novel, explores one family's journey as they flee from the pogroms of Russia in 1905, where the Cossacks burn villages to the ground, to Berlin, Germany, where Jews have a hard time living and working in peace, to the streets of the Lower East Side in New York. Teenage Miriam gives a first-hand account of the excitement everyone feels about going to America, the "Golden Land," the journey in steerage, the arrival at Ellis Island, and the discrimination the immigrants feel while seeking employment. When Miriam finally lands a job at the Triangle Shirt Waist Company as a cuff setter, she believes her future in the New World is finally secure. But on March 25, 1911, the fire that starts from overflowing bins of material scraps rages into what becomes known as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and Miriam's life is forever changed.

Louisa Gardener is the fourteen-year-old nursemaid to the young daughters of a wealthy, titled family living in London, England, in 1912. Despite the bullying Nanny Mackintosh, for whom she is an extra pair of hands, she loves her work and her young charges. Then everything changes. The family decides to sail to New York aboard the Titanic. An accident to the children's nanny, only days prior to the sailing, means that Louisa must go in her stead. She cannot refuse, although she dreads even the mention of the ocean. Memories she has suppressed, except in nightmares, come crowding back. When Louisa was five and her sister seven years old, their two-year-old brother died on an outing to the seaside. Since that time, Louisa has had a fear of the ocean. She blames herself for the accident, though she has been told it wasn't her fault. If Louisa refuses to go on the voyage, she will be dismissed, and she will never get beyond the working-class life she has escaped from. How Louisa learns self-reliance, overcomes her fears, and goes beyond what is expected of a girl makes No Moon an unforgettable story.