A Telling Time
Illustrated by Kathryn Shoemaker
- Publisher
- Tradewind Books
- Initial publish date
- Jan 2004
- Category
- Jewish, Europe, Holocaust
- Recommended Age
- 6 to 8
- Recommended Grade
- 1 to 3
- Recommended Reading age
- 6 to 8
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781896580722
- Publish Date
- Mar 2005
- List Price
- $9.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781896580395
- Publish Date
- Jan 2004
- List Price
- $22.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
This tale is told in three time-frames. On the eve of the Festival of Purim, a grandmother tells her granddaughter how, as a little girl, she heard the story of Queen Esther from her family rabbi. This was in 1939, in Nazi-occupied Vienna, on the eve of WWII. Soon after the rabbi begins the story of the brave queen, soldiers come to arrest him. The young girl begs for the rabbi to finish his story, and the soldiers allow him to do so. When the tale is over, the soldiers permit him to send the children home. But when the children turn to wave goodbye, the rabbi had vanished in the snowflakes, safe from harm, saved by the miracle of a story from long ago. The illustrations by Kathryn Shoemaker perfectly highlight the story's message of hope.
About the authors
In 1968 Irene N. Watts came to Canada from Britain, where she had arrived thirty years earlier from Germany, via Kindertransport. She is a writer/playwright, theatre director, and educator. Her plays for young audiences have been widely produced. Awards include a Vancouver Theatre Alliance Jessie Richardson for Goodbye Marianne (Scirocco Drama and Anchorage Press, U.S.); the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People; the Isaac Frischwasser Memorial Award (Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards, 1999 and 2001); the Government of Alberta Achievement Award for Outstanding Service to Drama. Irene is a Lifetime Member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Recent publications include Tapestry of Hope: Holocaust Writing for Young People, compiled with Lillian Boraks-Nemetz (Tundra Books).
Kathryn E. Shoemaker is the illustrator of many books for children, among them A Telling Time, My Animal Friends and Floyd the Flamingo and His Flock of Friends for Tradewind Books. She teaches children’s illustration at Langara College in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Other titles by
Seeking Refuge
Dear Canada: Hoping for Home
Stories of Arrival
Escape from Berlin
Touched by Fire
Cher Journal : Terre d'accueil, terre d'espoir
Onze récits
No Pets Allowed
Munsch at Play Act 2
Eight More Stage Adaptations
No Moon
Munsch at Play
Eight Stage Adaptations for Young Performers
Good-bye Marianne
A Story of Growing Up in Nazi Germany
