Review: Two Pieces of Chocolate
Two Pieces of Chocolate by Kathy Kacer, illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard Second Story Press, 2024 Category: Picture Books Reviewer: Karen Shakman Buy at Bookshop.org Two Pieces of Chocolate tells the story of an act of kindness between a woman and a child in Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp at the end of the Holocaust. The story is ultimately one of survival and hope, despite the desperate circumstances of the characters. The author does not shy away from describing the conditions of the camp, including powerful sensory details, such as the smell of “rotting eggs and bad feet and human sweat”, and the sight of humans “stumbling past like sleepwalkers.” Thus, the author paints a picture of a dark time in history without sugar coating the circumstances. However, the story conveys how people, in the face of such inhumanity, may act with selflessness, as does the child when she encounters a fellow prisoner, late in pregnancy and terribly weak. This act of kindness is at the center of the