When Newbery Medalist Karen Hesse came upon a short article about cats out-foxing the Gestapo at the train station in Warsaw during WWII, she couldn't get the story out of her mind. The result is this stirring account of a Jewish girl's involvement in the Resistance. At once terrifying and soulful, this fictional account, born of meticulous research, is a testament to history and to our passionate will to survive, as only Karen Hesse can write it. A young Jewish girl and her sister face the challenges of growing up in Poland during World War II. Having escaped the ghetto, they devise a plan to smuggle food to those still there with the help of the abandoned cats of Krasinski Square. Determined to help the handful of Jewish Resistance fighters feed others still inside the Ghetto, she comes up with a plan to distract the Gestapo and their dogs. Will their plan work, or will they be caught in the act?

A young girl feeds the stray cats in the local square while wondering about her friend on the other side of the Ghetto wall. She, her older sister, and some others hatch a plan to safely bring food to the others.

Set during World War II in Poland, this book has the potential to be incredibly sad but it mainly stays on the hopeful side by focusing on the incredible and daring people who fought back against the Nazis using whatever means they could. In this case, it was by helping to feed Jewish people who were suffering as a result of Nazi occupation.

Of course, any story about this time period is ultimately sad, especially as an author's note explains how thousands of Polish Jews died as a result of Nazi actions. Still, it's an important story to know and this one is appropriate for relatively young children (probably elementary school-age would be fine). ( )

In this heartbreaking and inspiring story based on an actual event, a pair of Jewish sisters who escaped the Warsaw Ghetto smuggle food to friends and those trapped on the other side of the wall. The narrator befriends all the neighborhood cats who have been orphaned by the Jews who have been killed or displaced by the Nazis. When they learn that the Gestapo has learned of a big smuggling shipment of food, they use the cats as a distraction to get the food over, under, and through the wall. ( )

This a mature story for children and is best used for kids older than third grade. The story is wonderfully retold of an event that took place in Poland during the second World War. I personally had to read through it twice to really pay attention to what happened. The illustrations are very well done and capture what I imagine were the tainted rubble filled streets of Warsaw, yet they were gentle, not at all depressing. The illustrator Wendy Watson used light and dark to represent the foreground and background. ( )

A historical story about Polish cats and a girl who escaped the Ghetto. Based on a true story. ( )