The Tree of Life: How a Holo­caust Sapling Inspired the World by Elisa Box­er and illus­trat­ed by Alian­na Rozentsveig has been hon­ored with a 2025 Syd­ney Tay­lor Sil­ver Medal in the Pic­ture Book cat­e­go­ry. Emi­ly Schnei­der spoke with the author and illus­tra­tor team about their approach to Holo­caust edu­ca­tion for chil­dren and their process for cre­at­ing this gor­geous book. This inter­view is part of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Blog Award Tour. Find the full STBA blog tour sched­ule here.

Emi­ly Schnei­der: First, I’d like to con­grat­u­late both of you on your recent award, and on your ded­i­ca­tion to com­mu­ni­cat­ing dif­fi­cult truths to chil­dren in Tree of Life. Authors and artists choose to frame the Holo­caust as a sub­ject in dif­fer­ent ways for a young audi­ence, but there is always a com­mon chal­lenge. How do you tell the truth about an unfath­omable tragedy while, to some degree, pro­tect­ing the young read­er emo­tion­al­ly? Elisa, how did you approach that prob­lem when writ­ing the book?

Elisa Box­er: Emi­ly, thank you so much. What a beau­ti­ful way to put that, the ded­i­ca­tion to com­mu­ni­cat­ing dif­fi­cult truths to chil­dren. It’s a chal­leng­ing and del­i­cate bal­ance, to be sure. For me, intro­duc­ing details about the hor­rors of the Holo­caust in an age-appro­pri­ate way, that respects a reader’s capac­i­ty for hold­ing the truth, cre­ates the foun­da­tion for high­light­ing sto­ries of resis­tance, resilience, and hope. That’s always my goal head­ing into a book, and through­out the writ­ing process. For me, it’s less about pro­tect­ing children’s emo­tions, and more about craft­ing the details in a high­ly spe­cif­ic and sacred way that hon­ors the sub­jects, as well as the chil­dren read­ing about them. And always lead­ing with sen­si­tiv­i­ty. With every book, my aim is to find that ten­der spot where respect for the sto­ry meets respect for the reader.

ES: Alian­na, an artist con­fronts the same issue. Images are as pow­er­ful as words. Your pic­tures of fright­ened chil­dren and des­per­ate care­tak­ers pro­voke strong emo­tions. You also include images of Nazi bru­tal­i­ty. What influ­enced your illus­tra­tion style for this book?

Alian­na Rozentsveig: I want­ed to be hon­est, but sen­si­tive, telling the truth and allow­ing read­ers to con­nect emo­tion­al­ly, with­out over­whelm­ing them. Mak­ing sure to bal­ance the dark­er scenes with moments of hope, hap­pi­ness, and life, as the sto­ry is ulti­mate­ly about find­ing hope in the dark­est times.

It was actu­al­ly Elisa that inspired me: ​“The chil­dren were the future of the Jew­ish peo­ple. And the Nazis want­ed a future with­out Jew­ish peo­ple.” It felt as if a child was explain­ing the Holo­caust to me, and I want­ed that per­spec­tive in the illus­tra­tions — always imag­in­ing how it would look through the eyes of the chil­dren. So I focused on how they would cling to imag­i­na­tion and com­fort, show­ing their inno­cence and resilience — like car­ing for the sapling by dress­ing it in a scarf, hold­ing onto its leaves for com­fort, or pro­tect­ing it from the elements.

ES: One par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing exam­ple, for me, is the scene of sol­diers with their hands held in the Nazi salute. You jux­ta­pose dark red flags with swastikas against a back­ground of grey, and oth­er mixed col­ors. And you include Hitler him­self, not just a mass of gener­ic evil. Was that a dif­fi­cult or a nat­ur­al deci­sion for you?

AR: This spread was the one that came most nat­u­ral­ly to me, I drew it instinc­tive­ly, with less over­think­ing, and it became my favorite. I was always a real­is­tic illus­tra­tor. I can’t depict the war with­out includ­ing Nazis, Hitler, or swastikas — they were an unde­ni­able real­i­ty. I also believe that hid­ing some­thing, say Hitler’s face, only fuels fear. In the end, it’s not the face or the salute that are inher­ent­ly ter­ri­fy­ing, but the ideas and actions behind them, and that’s where we tried to be espe­cial­ly care­ful, and why the main focus in this spread is not the Nazis, but the chil­dren and the tree.

EB: I hope it’s ok that I’m chim­ing in here! When I first saw that page, it took my breath away. The fact that Alian­na includ­ed Hitler and the Nazis salut­ing him, with the dark­ness spilling over to a pic­ture of the chil­dren keep­ing the tree alive… that spread speaks to a deep­er place in the soul than my words alone could ever touch. 

ES: Elisa, you begin the sto­ry with under­state­ment. The chil­dren are ​“scared and sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies.” They are uplift­ed when their coura­geous teacher helps them to plant a tree, as part of a les­son about the fes­ti­val of Tu B’Shevat. Then, as their lives wors­en, you phrase that process cau­tious­ly: ​“Over time, few­er and few­er chil­dren were left to care for the tree.” Alianna’s pic­ture of cat­tle cars leav­ing the camp visu­al­izes that fact. I’m inter­est­ed in how you wrote that sen­tence, and the fol­low­ing ones that allude to the children’s disappearance.

EB: Such a dif­fi­cult and del­i­cate bal­ance, as we were dis­cussing ear­li­er. The last thing I ever want to do is min­i­mize the truth, but I have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to present that truth in a way that hon­ors it with­out cre­at­ing trau­ma. This is where I start with my log­i­cal brain and come up with words. But then instinct takes over and I feel into the phras­es to deliv­er the mes­sage. That’s what hap­pened with the sen­tence you men­tioned, ​“Over time, few­er and few­er chil­dren were left to care for the tree.” My brain knew it need­ed to find the words, and that’s where the process began. But ulti­mate­ly my instinct — and prob­a­bly my heart too — found that phras­ing to con­vey the mes­sage that the chil­dren were tak­en away.

ES: You’ve explained that process real­ly clear­ly, the way that your intel­lect and emo­tions com­bined in writ­ing the sto­ry. Per­haps your choice of the word ​“mir­a­cle,” to char­ac­ter­ize the tree’s sur­vival, was a result of that same process. You call its seeds ​“descen­dants.” They were even­tu­al­ly plant­ed through­out the world. I not­ed that, when you report­ed the sur­vival of the children’s teacher in Terezin, Irma Lausch­er, you don’t claim it as a ​“mir­a­cle.” I was impressed with the unstat­ed dis­tinc­tion you made. Books which attribute sur­vival of the Holo­caust as mirac­u­lous always con­cern me.

EB: Thank you for rec­og­niz­ing that. I think when Holo­caust sur­vival is sole­ly deemed mirac­u­lous, it leaves out hard-fought resis­tance, inge­nu­ity, and a fierce will born out of our instinct to sur­vive in the most treach­er­ous of cir­cum­stances. Plus, I believe that we as a peo­ple were always meant to come back from the brink of this attempt­ed anni­hi­la­tion. The fact that this tree was plant­ed in secret; that its seeds were already grow­ing and thriv­ing all around the world before the tree itself died; that the tree was essen­tial­ly reborn hun­dreds of times over, and con­tin­ues to grow all over the world to this day, hon­or­ing the mem­o­ry of the chil­dren who nur­tured a future they wouldn’t get to be a part of and sym­bol­iz­ing our strength as a peo­ple— that to me feels miraculous.

ES: Alian­na, your pic­tures of the tree itself chron­i­cle change. At the end of the war, it has some leaves. Lat­er, it appears as much taller and stronger, sur­round­ed by vis­i­tors to the Terezin memo­r­i­al site. But, as the years pass, it dies, and you show it denud­ed of leaves. Can you tell us how you planned this sequence of pic­tures, and one of the tree’s revivals at the Muse­um of Jew­ish Her­itage in New York City?

AR: Since the book cen­ters on a tree and begins on Tu B’Shevat, it felt nat­ur­al to tell the sto­ry through nature, show­ing how it per­sists even in the most unnat­ur­al, hor­rif­ic place. It all start­ed with the visu­al con­nec­tion between gold­en Maple leaves in autumn and the yel­low star badges. That par­al­lel led me to weave a delib­er­ate sea­son­al cycle through­out the illus­tra­tions: he chil­dren receive the sapling in spring, plant it in sum­mer, and the atmos­phere reflects their hope. As hard­ships deep­en, the set­ting shifts to cold­er sea­sons — winds rage, and the tree los­es its leaves. Then, the cycle renews — lib­er­a­tion in spring, the tree’s death in fall, and its rebirth decades lat­er, with its descen­dant in sun­ny New York and the wind ready to car­ry its seeds to new places. I felt that it mir­rored the sto­ry of our peo­ple, and I was struck by how seam­less­ly this rhythm pro­pelled the sto­ry for­ward and added to the emo­tion­al arc throughout.

ES: Obvi­ous­ly, no sin­gle book rep­re­sents Holo­caust lit­er­a­ture for chil­dren. But would you each like to com­ment on how, in a world with few­er sur­vivors left, authors and illus­tra­tors may respond to that loss?

AR: You know, when illus­trat­ing this book, I found myself deeply inspired by the many artist-pris­on­ers of Terezin, most of whom are no longer alive. Despite unimag­in­able hard­ships they man­aged to use their craft to doc­u­ment dai­ly life in the ghet­to. Their art out­lived them, becom­ing a vital record — and at times, my only visu­al ref­er­ence when cre­at­ing this very book. It’s why I ded­i­cat­ed the book to them. So, I like to think of this as a joint effort; sur­vivors were nev­er meant to car­ry the entire bur­den of com­mem­o­rat­ing and edu­cat­ing about the Holo­caust. It was always our shared respon­si­bil­i­ty, and now, it’s more impor­tant than ever. Look­ing back on the past year or so, it’s obvi­ous how even a vast, well-doc­u­ment­ed event like the Holo­caust can be dis­tort­ed and reshaped into count­less nar­ra­tives that push its sur­vivors and vic­tims to the side­lines. Ensur­ing their sto­ries are uncov­ered, heard, and faith­ful­ly retold is crucial.

EB: Many of the Holo­caust sur­vivors I’ve inter­viewed over the years say they nev­er spoke a word about their expe­ri­ences, not even to their fam­i­lies, until they began to face their own mor­tal­i­ty. In their old age, many of them real­ized that if they didn’t share their sto­ries, how­ev­er painful, those sto­ries would be lost for­ev­er. Giv­en this, espe­cial­ly at a time with sky­rock­et­ing sta­tis­tics of Holo­caust denial, I per­son­al­ly feel dri­ven to shine a light on these sto­ries of sur­vival. And one thing that every sin­gle sur­vivor I’ve inter­viewed has in com­mon, is that they nev­er lost hope. They all say this. This is their over­whelm­ing mes­sage, to nev­er lose hope. As children’s lit­er­a­ture cre­ators, I think so many of us want to help chil­dren feel seen and heard in a world that often shush­es them. We want to help give them the strength to be who they are. Although noth­ing should be direct­ly com­pared to the Holo­caust, I believe that shar­ing these true sto­ries of peo­ple who nev­er lost hope, even in the most unfath­omable of cir­cum­stances and shin­ing a light on true sto­ries of resis­tance and resilience and courage can serve as a bea­con and a mod­el of inner strength for all chil­dren, regard­less of religion. 

ES: I’d like to thank both of you for shar­ing your thoughts, and for offer­ing read­ers an engag­ing and thought­ful pic­ture book. 

EB: Emi­ly, this was such a mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion, thank you so much for hav­ing us.