Adults will remember the movie Schindler's List, but I'm guessing kids probably haven't heard of Oskar Schindler. Fortunately, this book brings Schindler to a new generation with the true story of the youngest Jew on Schindler's list. Leon Leyson was a young boy when Germany invaded Poland. His family was forced to live in a ghetto, then in a work camp. Leon's father had a job in a factory run by Oskar Schindler, and no one knew it at the time, but it was a factory that would save 1,100 people's lives. Schindler was a member of the Nazi Party and a German, but for some reason he made it his life's work to hire Jews in his factory and to keep them from being killed by the Nazis. There were many times in Leon's life when he escaped death by a sheer stroke of luck. He was starving and mistreated and worked almost to death. But when Schindler added him to his list of factory workers (along with Leon's father, mother, brother and sister), it was his only hope to survive World War II. As you can imagine, it's a great story of courage as well as heartbreak. This book is well-written and accessible and highly recommended for readers as young as fourth or fifth grade.
