Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust

Dauvillier’s graphic novel about a Jewish girl’s survival in France during the Holocaust balances the cruelty of the persecution she experiences with the miraculous generosity of her neighbors. Lizano’s artwork, too, lightens the story’s grimmer moments—the outsize heads and pin-dot eyes of the characters are almost reminiscent of the Peanuts gang. Dounia Cohen, now a grandmother, recalls for her granddaughter the growing strictures on the lives of Jews, culminating one terrible night with the arrival of the police; her parents have seconds to hide her before they’re taken away. After the Péricards, trusted neighbors, take Dounia in, Mr. Péricard is betrayed. Dounia, consumed up until then with her own grief, realizes that the war causes pain for others: “I think it’s from that moment on that I no longer wanted to cry.” Dounia’s confusion and sorrow as she waits for her parents’ return (her mother survives, her father doesn’t) are drawn with perception and care. That Dounia chooses to tell her young granddaughter a story she has never revealed to her own son conveys both the persistence of grief and the possibility of healing. Ages 6–up. (Apr.)■