The sto­ry of the St. Louis is one of the most frus­trat­ing and trou­bling episodes of the ear­ly Holo­caust years. Fam­i­lies who man­aged to escape the Nazis and were on their way to free­dom were sum­mar­i­ly denied entry to Havana and oth­er expect­ed havens and the ship was ordered to return to Ger­many where they faced the very dan­gers from which they need­ed to flee. Here, the true sto­ry is retold but this time for younger read­ers and it is told with such imme­di­a­cy and clar­i­ty through the eyes of ten-year-old Liesl, an actu­al sur­vivor, that chil­dren of today are sure to get a sense of time and place, of fear and long­ing, of uncer­tain­ty and hope. The sto­ry is sen­si­tive­ly por­trayed with no unwar­rant­ed fear-mon­ger­ing but it does give a sense of the per­ils that Liesl and her fam­i­ly had to face. The book’s font is large and easy to read and the black and white illus­tra­tions con­vey emo­tion through facial expres­sion and detail. This book is an excel­lent choice for use in a class­room or as a gen­tle intro­duc­tion to Holo­caust lit­er­a­ture for a child who already has some basic knowl­edge of events and wants to read more but is not devel­op­men­tal­ly ready for most of the more graph­ic Holo­caust offer­ings. Back mat­ter includes an author’s note with his­tor­i­cal in­formation about the pro­tag­o­nist, sug­ges­tions for fur­ther learn­ing and a bib­li­og­ra­phy. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed for ages 7 – 9.