As a writer of Holo­caust books for young read­ers, I am con­stant­ly look­ing for true sto­ries about this time in his­to­ry that I think will inspire young peo­ple. There are mil­lions of accounts to tell and every one of them is wor­thy and impor­tant. But not every sto­ry is one that I can or choose to write. 

Sev­er­al years ago, my pub­lish­er came to me with an account that made me sit up and take notice. The sto­ry was about a young woman named Francine Christophe who, as a young Jew­ish girl, had sur­vived in the Bergen Belsen con­cen­tra­tion camp. Her moth­er was impris­oned with her and had man­aged to smug­gle into the camp two pieces of choco­late. She told Francine that she was sav­ing them for a time when she felt her daugh­ter real­ly need­ed her spir­its lift­ed. What fol­lowed was an act of pure gen­eros­i­ty and self­less­ness on Francine’s part. I was grate­ful for the gift of this sto­ry, and I knew right away that I want­ed to write it. It became my lat­est book, Two Pieces of Choco­late.

From the very begin­ning, I envi­sioned this sto­ry as a pic­ture book. I knew I had to be extra care­ful in writ­ing this tale for a young audi­ence, tread­ing the line between being truth­ful about this dif­fi­cult his­to­ry and remain­ing sen­si­tive to the age and stage of devel­op­ment of my read­er­ship. And we need­ed the per­fect illus­tra­tor to bring the book to life — some­one who would respect the seri­ous­ness of the mate­r­i­al, but also soft­en the draw­ings in a way that would entice the read­ers and draw them into the sto­ry. I was thrilled when Gabrielle Gri­mard agreed to come on board as the illus­tra­tor. I’ve been a long-time fan of her work and she brought her immense tal­ent to this book. 

There are so many aspects of Francine and her mother’s sto­ry that inspire me, and that I hope will inspire oth­ers. We are com­ing to a time when the com­mu­ni­ty of Holo­caust sur­vivors who are able to per­son­al­ly share their sto­ries is grow­ing small­er and small­er. It will not be long before the first-hand wit­ness­es of this his­to­ry are gone. Now, more than ever, we need to find and pre­serve these impor­tant sto­ries so we can pass them on to the next generation. 

This is also a sto­ry about kind­ness dur­ing dev­as­tat­ing and des­per­ate times. I think that any sto­ry that can con­vey a mes­sage of kind­ness in the midst of so much suf­fer­ing and anguish is an impor­tant one to write. Kids need these hope­ful mes­sages as they strug­gle to make sense of Holo­caust his­to­ry and, in turn, as they deter­mine how they want to act in the world today and in the future. Two Pieces of Choco­late pro­vides that les­son. But what makes Francine’s sto­ry even more impor­tant is that not only is she a sur­vivor, but she is also a helper, a pro­tec­tor, a res­cuer, one who was able and will­ing to think of a fel­low pris­on­er even as she her­self suf­fered. Over the years, I’ve writ­ten many books about res­cuers, those brave indi­vid­u­als who helped or saved Jews by demon­strat­ing moral courage and good cit­i­zen­ship at that dan­ger­ous time in his­to­ry. Those books that I’ve writ­ten are pri­mar­i­ly about non-Jew­ish res­cuers. In this case, the res­cuer is a Jew­ish girl and I love that part of the story.

I am a child of Holo­caust sur­vivors and the respon­si­bil­i­ty to find and write these sto­ries is an impor­tant one for me. It is my pas­sion and per­haps my pur­pose. I grew up in a fam­i­ly that talked open­ly about their expe­ri­ences dur­ing that time. I often think back to how my own par­ents were able to tell me about their sur­vival expe­ri­ences in a way that did­n’t ter­ri­fy me, but rather made me more curi­ous and pas­sion­ate about this time peri­od. I learned a lot from my par­ents about how to write these sto­ries for young peo­ple. And cer­tain­ly, I’ve learned a lot from the kids I’ve writ­ten for – what they can absorb, how much is too much, how to engage them in this his­to­ry, and so much more. I always say that it is okay for kids to be moved or even sad­dened by this his­to­ry — it’s a sad his­to­ry! What I don’t want is for kids to be trau­ma­tized by this his­to­ry. It’s always my hope that kids want to read and learn more about these sto­ries after read­ing my books. I know that will be the case after they read about Francine’s brav­ery in Two Pieces of Choco­late.