January 9,

A letter arrived from Sarah, again tucked in with mail from Uncle Nathaniel.

Chère Devorah,

Our worst fears came to pass. Three huge bangs on the door. Maman ran to my room and told me to keep the door closed and not to come out. Within minutes she came back and sak down on my bed weeping. "They're taken him," she said. "To Drancy. Arrested."

I can barely sleep anymore. I keep hearing that pounding on the door. Sometimes I feel the sound will explode in my brain. Chère Devorah, what is wrong with the world? I don't understnad any of this. Do you?

Your loving cousin, Sarah

The letter from Uncle Nathaniel told of being arrested, but little else, except another question about how the visas are going. I could hear Mommy crying from her bedroom.

During the Second World War, many French Jewish families tried to send their children to safety in other countries including Canada. Tragically, the Canadian government didn't want them and a number of children who were "cleared" to leave never made it and were sent to concentration camps where they died. This is a story of one family's struggle.

Now available from Scholastic Canada.

With the Nazis ready to herd the remaining Jews of her town into a ghetto, and with her family either scattered or dead, Marisa, a Polish Jew whose blonde hair and blue eyes make it easy for her to pass as a Christian, takes the papers of a Polish girl and in that disguise goes to Germany in a desperate attempt to survive as a Polish worker. After traveling to Weimar, Marisa finds work as a servant for the Reymanns, a wealthy farming family who treat her with dignity and respect. Their daughter Charlotte becomes fond of Marisa and wants to be her friend. Marisa's life with the Reymanns may seem safe, the Reymanns appear fair, but she can never forget that Herr Reymann is a high-ranking Nazi official and Charlotte attends the League of German Maidens. Marisa is hiding in plain sight in her enemy's house. This novel presents an unflinching account of Marisa's dilemma as a Jew living a lie in order to survive and will give readers a new perspective on the nature of good and evil even as it touches their hearts.

"Everyone in this whole area is working to save us, even knowing what could happen to them if they are caught."

In the autumn of 1940, when Anna Hirsch, her friends, and her family are rounded up by Nazis and deported to Gurs, a refugee camp in the south of France, they see little hope on the horizon. Food is scarce, and the living conditions inhuman. Even worse is the ever-present fear that they will be relocated once again – this time to one of the death camps.

But when word comes that Anna and the other children at Gurs are to be moved, their destination is not Auschwitz or Buchenwald, but Le Chambon-sur-Lignon: a tiny village whose citizens have agreed to care for deported Jewish children. As the war rages on and the Germans gain more control in France, Jews – and those who shelter them – are sought with increased vigor, and when they are found, the punishment is severe. Yet even in the face of Nazi atrocities, and regardless of the risk to themselves, the good people of LeChambon continue to protect the refugees who seek cover in their homes.

In this story – based on actual occurrences during the German occupation of France – award-winning author Carol Matas unveils a contagious goodness that permeated one corner of a region otherwise enveloped in evil, and celebrates the courage that made these citizens "greater than angels."

Now available in paperback from Scholastic Canada in Canada, and Simon and Schuster in the United States.

"If you haven't read Greater Than Angels, it's time… a gripping, amazing read." – The Toronto Star

"Intelligently written and emotionally powerful." – Quill & Quire

"An exciting tale of teenagers in the Danish resistence…full of suspense…"–Janet Lunn

The city is Copenhagen and the year is 1940. Lisa is twelbe years old, a bright high-spirited girl looking forward to the fund and independence of being a teenager.

Then Lisa and her family are awakend early one morning by the roar or warplanes–Hitler is invading Denmark. The small country is overrun within the day, and the hardships and persecutions of enemy occupation begin.

When Lisa realizes that her older brother, Stefan, has joined the Danish resistance, she insists on helping too. She becomes a secret messeanger with the thrilling, terrifying job of distributing leaflets under the very noses of the German soldiers.

But as the war goes on the German occupation becomes more bilent, and word spreads of Hitler's visious campaign against the Jews in neighbouring countries. For the Jews of Denmark–including Lisa, who is now fifteen–time is runing out; and Lisa and her best friend, Suzanne, set aside their dreams of dating and romance to beome full partners in the heart-stopping world of armed resistance.

It is a time when nothing is safe, and no one can be trusted. There are German soldiers everywhere; worse yet, there are Danes who secretly spy on their neighbours in exchange for extra food or money. Despite the terrible danger, though, teenage Jesper risks everything to work for the resistance.

The Second World War is at its height. Like most of Europe, the small nation of Denmark has been overrun by Hitler's armies. Food and supplies are rationed, newspapers are censored, and Danes who resist are jailed, tortured, even shot. But Jesper and his friends in the resistance defy the Germans–and put their lives on the line–by publishing an underground newspaperto tell people what is reaally hapening in the war, and carrying out desperate feats of military sabotage–with the Germans constantly at their heels.

Jesper is a thrilling novel of determination, courage, and love. It is also a tale of twisted loyalties, ruthlessness and betrayal, and the darker side of heroism.

Daniel barely remembers leading a normal life before the Nazis came to power in 1933. He can still picture once being happy and safe, but memories of those days are fading as he and his family face the dangers threatening Jews in Hitler's Germany in the late 1930's. No longer able to practice their religion, vote, own property, or even work, Daniel's family is forced from their home in Frankfurt and sent on a long and dangerous journey, first to the Lodz ghetto in Poland, and then to Auschwitz – the Nazi death camp. Though many around him lose hope in the face of such terror, Daniel, supported by his courageous family, struggles for survival. He finds hope, life and even love in the midst of despair.

"Didn't the gas ovens finish you all off?" is the response that meets Ruth Mendenberg when she returns to her village in Poland after the liberation of Buchenwald at the end of World War II. Her entire family wiped out in the Holocaust, the fifteen-year-old girl has nowhere to go.

Members of the underground organization Brichah find her, and she joins them in their dangerous quest to smuggle illegal immigrants to Palestine. Ruth risks her life to help lead a group of children on a daring journey over half a continent and across the sea to Eretz Israel, using secret routes and forged documents – and sheer force of will.

This adventure will touch readers, who will marvel at the resources and inner strength of mere children, helping other children to find a place in the world in which they can belong.

"I look at my garden and wonder if we will end up like that in the weeks and months to come – broken, crushed. After all, there are millions of Arabs and so few of us. If they decide to fight, how could we survive?"

Ruth Mendenberg, survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp, has helped a group of other young refugees flee Poland. They have been smuggled into Palestine and now live on a kibbutz, trying to forget, trying to forge a new life, longing for only one thing – peace. Ruth's solace comes from tending her garden, where she has found beauty and tranquility. But her respite does not last long.

The United Nations is preparing to vote on a plan that would partition Palestine into two separate lands, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews. The Arabs are ready to fight to prevent partition, and the British government does little to stop the escalating hostilities.

Ruth's brother, Simon, belongs to the Irgun, a terrorist group ready to bomb their enemies. Ruth herself has joined the Haganah, which believes in fighting only in self-defence. How far will they have to go before they find the peace and safety of a place they can finally call home?