Montreal – Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Visiting Montreal for three days during Jewish Book Month

Thank you Talya Pardo and the Jewish Public Library, and also the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, for making my visit to Montreal schools possible.

I presented Don’t Tell the Enemy to students in grades 5 to 8. This novel is based on the true story of Krystia and her mother who hide three Jewish friends under their kitchen floor during the Holocaust.

Talya Pardo did an amazing job arranging the visits, scheduling six presentations with five different schools, both public and private, for me to present to more than 600 students. She chauffeured me through rain, snow, road construction and traffic jams and we had great conversations over our lunches together.

I loved meeting all six groups of students! The questions were awesome. And so were the hugs:

Talya also took me on a tour of her library and also the Montreal Holocaust Museum.

It was a wonderful week!

I asked students to come up to the front to ask their questions so that everyone could hear them better. By the end of the presentation I think more than half of the students had come up to the front. It was wonderful! Such great questions!

Jewish Book Month school visits in Montreal

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.

A Christmas to Remember

A Christmas To Remember is a wonderful seasonal anthology for Dear Canada readers, both old and new! A real treat for fans of this series, and all lovers of historical fiction!

Eleven stories that each revisit a favourite character from books in the Dear Canada series are included in this special collection. These are completely original tales that stand alone as heartwarming Christmas stories, but also serve as a lovely “next chapter” to their original books. Each story is written by one of Canada’s top award-winning writers for children, including Marsha Skrypuch, Jean Little, Sarah Ellis, Maxine Trottier, Carol Matas and more. This collection is a lovely companion to A Season of Miracles, and will be treasured year after year at holiday time!