The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Harboring Hope: The True Story of How Henny Sinding Helped Denmark's Jews Escape the Nazis by Susan Hood HarperCollins, 2023 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Meira Drazin Buy at Bookshop.org Toward the end of Harboring Hope there is a quote attributed to the Israeli-Danish journalist Herbert Pundik: “About 99 percent of the Jews in Denmark survived while 98 percent of Poland’s three million Jews perished.” Harboring Hope is the story of how the Danish people saved the Jews of their country. The nonfiction middle grade book written in free verse is anchored by the story of 22-year-old Henny Sinding, who with the crew of the small but intrepid Gerda III, successfully smuggled more than 300 Jews across the water to Sweden— ten to fifteen men, women and children at a time in the fish hold. The breadth and extent of research, including oral testimonies and other primary sources, is ambitious and expertly integrated, not only into a cohesive and riveting story, but also into free verse...

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis by Susan Hood with Greg Dawson Harper (imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), 2022 Category: Middle Grade Reviewer: Karin Fisher-Golton Buy at Bookshop.org Among its many strong attributes, Alias Anna is a tribute to the power of girls. A modern girl’s bold and caring question leads to her grandmother sharing a story she had kept inside for decades. And the protagonist, Zhanna, and her sister Frina’s talents and resourceful choices help them survive Holodomor (the Stalin-contrived Ukrainian famine), local antisemitism, and the Holocaust. Despite having very different personalities, both sisters love music and piano from a young age. They become the two youngest scholarship recipients at the Kharkov Conservatory of Music. While their musical talents contribute to their survival, their notoriety as performers creates obstacles as well. Susan Hood adapted Greg Dawson’s extensive interviews and projects for adults to portray Dawson’s mother’...