Jennifer Roy

Yellow Star-by Jennifer Roy is a novel told in free verse based on the true story of Sylvia Perimutter who was one of 12 Jewish children (out of 250,000) that survived the Lodz Ghetto in Poland after WWII. The Nazis invaded Lodz Poland in 1939, when Sylvia was 4 ½ years old and her family tried to escape to Warsaw, but had to return for lack of work to Lodz. The Jewish families were segregated and walled off in what would become known as the Lodz Ghetto. The Nazis ordered all children to be sent away on the trains to the “work” camps, but Sylvia’s father knew how to pay attention, watch and observe every move the soldiers made so he could outsmart them, and find ways to keep his family safe. Over the years Sylvia’s parents smuggled the children from cellar to cellar, hiding not only Sylvia, but her sister Dora and their cousin Isaac, until 1945 when the Lodz Ghetto was liberated, just one day short of Sylvia’s 10th birthday. In 2006, after 50 years of keeping the story to herself, Sylvia recounts the events to her niece Jennifer Roy, who tells the story from a young Sylvia’s perspective, using a voice that matures with the years and is both realistic and relatable to young readers. The little girl braves hunger and faces with courage the hardships of hiding for years, losing friends, a favorite doll, and practically everything else, but persists by using her imagination to help her withstand the moment and all it entails.… (mer)