Talya Pardo, librarian-extraordinaire at the Jewish Public Library, organized a wonderful set of school visits in Montreal in honour of Jewish Book Month. I met many awesome students, teachers and school staff!
Doing book presentations on Don’t Tell the Enemy is always difficult because it’s an emotional story about a real girl who was exceptionally brave and compassionate at a time when most people were not. As I said to one group of students, writing this story was like cutting out my heart. Talking about Krystia, Dolek and Leon during Jewish Book Month was especially poignant, as many kids in the audience had lost family members in the Holocaust. That, mixed with the current violence that’s been directed at Jewish people in these last number of weeks, made it sometimes hard to speak without a catch of tears.
Thank you, Talya, for your hospitality. And thank you to the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, for travel funding.
