Carol Matas, award-winning YA fiction authorCarol Matas, Award-winning Novelist for Young People

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MORE THAN 40  BOOKS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS!
COMING SOON — A MEDITATION ON THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

When I Die is a meditation on death that is sure to resonate with readers of all ages. Are you grappling with the issue of your mortality? Are you looking for a way to talk about death to your child or grandchild? When I Die can give you a safe place to start.

Carol Matas explains how she came to write When I Die

"The entire manuscript came to me all at once while I was meditating. I have changed it a little but it is almost exactly as I 'heard' it originally. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, my mind was rather blank, so I can’t explain why I thought of it or how it came to be. But I feel comforted by it in some strange way.

"The circle of life will go on with or without me. Some people tend to think they are the centre of the universe and all important. Others think they don’t matter at all and no one would care if they lived or if they died. I tend to think that there is a balance in almost everything. We are all the most important things in the universe- after all, Jewish thought says that if you save one life you have saved the world. And it is also true that the world will go on without us and that is a good thing. Everything is important or nothing is important. I believe everything is."


NEW FOR 2013
 
Pieces of the Past, Holocaust Diary by Carol MatasPieces of the Past: The Holocaust Diary of Rose Rabinowitz

A young Jewish girl recounts her experiences during a horrifying time in recent history. As Rose begins her diary, she is in her third home since coming to Winnipeg. Traumatized by her experiences in the Holocaust, she struggles to connect with others, and above all, to trust again.

When her new guardian, Saul, tries to get Rose to deal with what happened to her during the war, she begins writing in her diary about how she survived the murder of the Jews in Poland by going into hiding.

Memories of herself and her mother being taken in by those willing to risk sheltering Jews, moving from place to place, being constantly on the run to escape capture, begin to flood her diary pages. Recalling those harrowing days, including when they stumbled on a resistance cell deep in the forest and lived underground in filthy conditions, begins to take its toll on Rose.

As she delves deeper into her past, she is haunted by the most terrifying memory of all. Will she find the courage to bear witness to her mother's ultimate sacrifice?

Praise for Pieces of the Past:
"Carol Matas...one of the most widely read purveyor of young adult literature...does not condescend to her audience. The prose is crisp and well constructed, the dialogue is authentic, and she demonstrates a willingness to delve into sometimes painful subjects, such as Rose’s witnessing death all about her. As much as so many Holocaust survivors have written their own memoirs in recent years – and Carol Matas pays tribute to the kinds of stories that inspired her to write this book –  in the hands of a polished writer such as Matas, what might have descended into cliché instead results in a gripping and often hopeful read."
  Bernie Bellan, The Jewish Post & News. Read the full review

Available from:
Amazon.ca
Chapters Indigo
McNally Robinson


In My Enemies House, holocaust, Nazi Germany, Carol MatasIn My Enemy's House

"I survived. Protected by the Nazis that killed my family. Could I ever forgive myself?"


With the Nazis ready to herd the remaining Jews of her town into a ghetto, and with her family either scattered or dead, Marisa takes the papers of a Polish girl and goes to Germany in a desperate attempt to survive as a Polish worker. This unflinching account of Marisa's dilemma as a Jew living a lie to survive provides a new perspective on the nature of good and evil.
 
 

PUBLISHED IN 2012 – A HIT WITH MIDDLE GRADES
 
Behind Enemy Lines

Chosen by the The Canadian Children's Book Centre as one of their "Best Books" for 2012.

Nominated for the 2013 Ontario Library Association Golden Oak Award


Carol Matas Behind Enemy Lines Diary of a young WWII gunnerInspired by a true story of endurance and courage

Eighteen-year-old Sam Frederiksen has come a long way from the Prairies. Trained to be a gunner in a Lancaster bomber during WWII, he is shot down over France. Battered and bruised, he does survive, and joins forces with the French Resistance... only to be betrayed by one of its members.

He and other flyers from various Allied countries are rounded up by the Gestapo and held in Fresnes prison just outside of Paris.Treated as spies, rather than POWs, these men are beaten, some tortured — then sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in eastern Germany. It is here, in these wretched conditions, that Sam witnesses the darkest side of humanity — gas chambers, torture and starvation. Yet it is also here that he comes to understand the true resilience and unfathomable courage of the victims.

Praise for Behind Enemy Lines:
"The narrative voice is potent and realistic, and Carol Matas does a marvelous job capturing both the hope and courage in Sam’s personality as well as the terror he feels as he is transported around Nazi occupied territory against his will ... the truth of his situation is never overwrought with heavy-handed factuality or didacticism. Behind Enemy Lines is a fantastic account of one Canadian’s struggles through World War II in occupied France."  Bob Bittner, CM, Volume XVIII Number 23, Feb. 17, 2012. Read the full review.

"What starts as a rip-roaring adventure soon becomes a sobering account of strength in the face of adversity that encompasses the workings of the French Resistance and illuminates the Holocaust from a fresh angle ... the subject matter is difficult but ultimately uplifting."  Elaine Kalman Naves, The Gazette (Montreal) Feb. 17, 2012.

ORDER Behind Enemy Lines from:

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