PICTURE BOOK - Let the Celebrations Begin! by Margaret Wild

A Story of  Hope for the Liberation
illustrated by Julie Vivas
for Older Kids
1991, 2013 Candlewick Press

HC $16.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.10

My rating: 5 stars!

1^st line/s:  "We are planning a party, a very special party, the women and I.  My name is Miriam, and this is where I live.  Hut 18, bed 22."

My comments:  Not based on a true story, but that possibility becomes more real after reading the quote from Antique Toys and Their Background: "A small collection of stuffed toys has been preserved which were made by Polish women in Belsen for the first children's party held after the liberation." This is a powerful book. Words and illustrations couldn't work more beautifully together. It doesn't TELL a story of the Holocaust, it SHOWS it. Brilliantly, with a quiet serenity that makes it over-the-top-special. Not for little ones.

Goodreads:  Miriam lives in hut 18, bed 22. She has little to eat and nothing to play with, but she can remember what it was like before, when she had her own food, her own bed, and her very own toys. As World War II nears an end, everyone says the soldiers are coming, so Miriam joins the women in planning a celebration. Every night, while the guards sleep, they busy themselves crafting toys out of scraps of their clothing to surprise the younger children. Based on a reference to a small collection of stuffed toys made by women in Belsen for the first party held after the liberation of the camp, this new edition of Let the Celebrations Begin!, originally published in 1996, is an affecting story 
of human survival.