Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued. Peter Sis. Illustra 2021. [January] 64 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: Nicky was born in 1909, into a century full of promise.
There aren't a lot of picture books about the Holocaust. Nicky & Vera is one such book. It tells the story of Nicholas Winton. His work saved over six hundred [Jewish] children trapped in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Vera (of the title) was one such child he rescued. Nick never made a big deal--or a little deal--about his effort to save lives during the second world war, but, in the 1980s he was reunited (on television) with some of those he had rescued decades before.
I read this in e-book format (library e-book). I do think it would have been an even better reading experience for me if I'd read it as a book-book. I think with many books one format is just as good as the other. But that wasn't the case with this one. Picture books have spreads (obviously) two pages working together visually as one. Sometimes a sentence would be spread out over both pages. So your narrative wouldn't make sense until you "turned the page" of the e-book.
Definitely worth reading for the text and the illustrations. (Though the illustrations are not my personal cup of tea.) They are the kind of illustrations that while I personally may not love them often tend to win acclaim and awards from other people.
© 2022 Becky Laney of Young Readers
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