Author: Schoschana Rabinovici
Title: Thanks to My Mother
Illustrator: none
Genre: Non-fiction
Subgenre: Biography
Theme: patriotic
Primary Characters: Susie Weksler
Secondary characters: Her mother
Awards: Mildred L. Batchelder Winner
Date of publication: 2000
Publishing company: Puffin
Summary: Susie Weksler was only eight in 1941 when Hitler's forces invaded her Lithuanian city of Vilnius, a great center for Jewish learning and culture. Soon her family would face hunger and fear in the Jewish ghetto - but worse was to come. When the ghetto was cleared out, some Jews were selected for forced labor camps; the rest were killed. Susie would live - because of the courage of her mother. It was her mother who carried Susie, hidden in a backpack, to the group destined for the labor camps; who disguised her as an adult in makeup and turban to fool the camp guards; who fed her body and soul through gruesome conditions in three concentration camps and a winter "death march"; who showed her the power of the human spirit to endure.
Use with Students: I would use this in a unit about the Holocaust for older students. I think students would really enjoy getting into something like this about a girl that was their age and the courage a mother had.
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