Non­fic­tion Holo­caust books often dwell by neces­si­ty on the neg­a­tive. It was, after all, a hor­rif­ic time in his­to­ry and there is no way to make it seem less so. Indeed, it would be a dis­ser­vice to the truth to mit­i­gate the hor­ror. And yet, when edu­cat­ing chil­dren, it is devel­op­men­tal­ly vital to present them with pieces of this his­to­ry that they can digest and com­pre­hend with­out caus­ing them dam­age, pieces that are pre­sent­ed in a devel­op­men­tal­ly appro­pri­ate way and which pave the way for a pos­i­tive learn­ing expe­ri­ence. These books, part of Cap­stone’s Heroes of World War II series, do an excel­lent job of this by pre­sent­ing his­tor­i­cal role mod­els who stand up against the pre­vail­ing evil. Resist­ing the Nazis focus­es on resis­tance efforts such as The War­saw Ghet­to Upris­ing and The French Resis­tance Move­ment but it also presents a broad­er pic­ture by defin­ing what resis­tance means, how it can some­times be effect­ed, how resis­tance recruits may be trained, and oth­er basic fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion which puts resis­tance into his­tor­i­cal con­text for chil­dren. The book iden­ti­fies indi­vid­ual resis­tance heroes with short biogra­phies and pho­tographs. It con­tains a glos­sary, maps, a time­line, a list of sug­gest­ed books and web­sites for fur­ther research, a list of relat­ed top­ics to think about and places to vis­it to enhance learn­ing. Sav­ing the Per­se­cut­ed pro­vides back­ground about the Nazis and Jew­ish life in Europe dur­ing the Nazi peri­od. It pro­files indi­vid­u­als who helped save Jews, pro­vid­ing short biogra­phies and pho­tographs. It is filled with per­ti­nent facts pro­vid­ing per­spec­tive and con­text and includes a map, a time­line, a glos­sary, a list of books and web­sites for fur­ther learn­ing, a sug­gest­ed research project, and places to vis­it to learn more about the era.

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 9 – 11.

Addi­tion­al Titles Fea­tured in Review: