Once by Morris Gleitzman

Felix has been left in the protection of a Catholic orphanage by his parents as they tried themselves to flee the Nazis in Poland during World War II. When Felix escapes to find his parents, he slowly begins to understand the perils he faces and the truth that he is unlikely to ever find his parents. As the stories he has told himself in order to survive the nightmare of his abandonment begin, one-by-one to fall away in the face of brutal reality, Felix finds himself protecting a younger, recently ophaned child. His stories keep her hopeful as they hide in the Warzsaw ghetto. But even his skilled storytelling cannot keep the truth at bay. A simple and beguiling narrative belies the heartbreaking tragedy endured by this Felix and his cohort of innocents in a story that can never be told too often.

John Sexton, Tarrytown.

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