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Hidden Child

Publication Information

Author: Millman, Isaac

Illustrator: Millman, Isaac

Title: Hidden Child

Date: 2005

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

City: New York

ISBN, paperback: 0-374-33071-9

ISBN, hardback:

Recommended audience:

ABE/ABLE: Yes

ESOL:

Family:

Young Adult:

Picture: Yes

General Information:

Book Type(s): nonfiction, memoirs/reminiscences

HSE Descriptor(s): social studies

Summary:

A survivor of the Holocaust describes with illustrations and text his hiding in France during World War II and his search for his family and friends after the war.

Teaching Ideas:

This book makes an excellent first person account contribution to the text set on the Holocaust. Readers may be intrigued with why the author chose to draw from photographs rather than use the actual photographs to illustrate his story. How would photographs have changed the response to the story? How does the type face of the title and chapter headings contribute to the story of the Holocaust? Readers may gain from the story if they can identify with Issac by choosing one of the turning points of the story and write in the first person about the incident--leaving for the hospital without his mother, being delivered from the hospital to a family too frightened to take him in, living under starvation conditions with the Merciers, living with Mme. Devolder, etc. In a similar vein, readers might adopt Millman's point of view and write "unsent letters" to these people who played such important roles in his life. The author's explanation about how he tracked information about his family might lead to discussion of how one goes about searching for a "lost" person.

Teaching Strategies: