16 June 2011 THEN by Morris Gleitzman, Henry Holt, May 2011, 208p., ISBN: 978-0-8050-9027-7

"'That's okay,' says Zelda in a small voice.  'I'm not hungry.

'"I know she is because I am.

"I hug her even tighter.  Sometimes love from your family can make your tummy not hurt quite so much." 

What happens when a group of people is hated because of their ethnic or religious identity?  You end up with a Holocaust.  Millions of innocent people, including children, who have done nothing beyond having been randomly born into a group, are slaughtered. 

It is tragic that well-known figures like Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and Father Charles Coughlin promoted anti-Semitic agendas during the interwar years, helped sway public opinion in America away from early opposition to Hitler's mad schemes.  It is similarly horrible, here in the twenty-first century, when a major-party presidential candidate actively promotes hatred and fear of Muslims.  It is undoubtedly going to take the extended efforts of millions of educators to undo the spread of ignorance that will now pass from parents to children about how one cannot trust a Muslim; how they are all trying to blow us up.

It is in the best interests of all people that we stand against the hatred and fear of any group of people based upon their ethnic, religious, or racial identity.  As educators of young people, we do this in a positive manner through the promotion of multiculturalism.  Children grow up more accepting and less likely to wage war upon one another when they come to recognize that children who look, speak, and live in cultures different than their own are still like them and not people to be hated and feared.

While they can be rather tough stories to be reading about, young people must also learn of the horrors that have resulted historically when groups of people have been condemned, based solely upon their ethnic or religious or racial identity.  This is essential so that such atrocities are not repeated.

There are points at which THEN is a tough story to be reading.  But I am really glad that I did.

THEN, by Morris Gleitzman, is the story of Felix and Zelda, two young children who survive jumping from the window of a train heading through Poland to a Nazi death camp.  Narrowly and repeatedly escaping death at the hands of Nazis, they find a home with Genia, a farm woman whose husband has been forced to go to work in Germany for the Nazis.  Bleaching their hair and changing their names (to those of Felix's favorite book characters), the children and their new guardian narrowly escape the horrors that regularly befall the Polish community in which they live.  That feisty six year-old Zelda (now known as Violetta) is an outspoken speaker-of-truths provides both constant levity and constant danger.

What is most fascinating about THEN is the interaction between the two children and the other children they encounter in the town.  These include members of the Hitler Youth Movement and a local gang of Jew-hating youngsters.  What might be most wonderful about the story is how a beloved book helps forge understanding between disparate and desperate young people.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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