At a time when chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture was filled with pic­ture-per­fect fam­i­lies, Mar­i­lyn Sachs paint­ed a dark­er, rich­er reality.

Ten years after my grand­fa­ther died, I found myself sort­ing through a shal­low plas­tic bin that held the accu­mu­lat­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion of his life.