One More Border: The True Story of One Family's Escape from War-Torn Europe

From Publishers Weekly
Working with Tanaka (On Board the Titanic), Kaplan delves into his father's childhood experiences for this combination family drama and history lesson. In 1939, Igor Kaplan and his younger sister, Nomi, leave their home in Memel, Lithuania, as their prescient parents keep one step ahead of the Nazis. In the Lithuanian capital, the now-legendary Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara gives Mr. Kaplan a visa for himself and the children. Mrs. Kaplan, who is Russian, needs separate exit and entrance visas; she somehow obtains the former just in time to join the family, already aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. After more dangerous journeys and 11th-hour deliverances, they finally reach Ontario, where the children's grandparents live. The Kaplans' saga, illustrated with attractive watercolors, is paralleled with archival photos and explanatory sidebars. For example, as the Kaplans flee Memel, photos on the facing page show Nazis goose-stepping and German soldiers marching through a burning Polish village; a three-paragraph caption defines WWII. While the explanatory apparatus will answer many of the general questions readers are likely to raise, some areas remain confusing (e.g., the contest between Nazis and Russians for control of Lithuania). The two-tier narrative can be distracting and deflects from the momentum of the Kaplans' narrow escapes; readers will have to know the background already before they can fully appreciate the desperate nature of the family's plight. Ages 9-12. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5-Feeling they are no longer safe in their town of Memel, a Lithuanian Jewish family undertakes a long and dangerous journey. Mr. Kaplan and his two children are issued visas by Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul whose story was told in Ken Mochizuki's Passage to Freedom (Lee & Low, 1997). Russian born Mrs. Kaplan needed to acquire a separate visa in Moscow. Most of the narrative centers around the experiences of Igor, the oldest child, as the family travels by the Trans-Siberian Express and by ship. They eventually make their way to eastern Canada where they are met by the children's grandparents, and they begin their lives over. The story is written somewhat melodramatically, but is not without merit. Information about World War II and the fate of the Jews who remained in Europe is provided in sidebars and news photos that interrupt the narrative flow. It is hard to determine which pictures are family snapshots and which ones are general news photos. The soft-pencil or pastel illustrations neither add nor detract from the presentation. Most of the words in the glossary can be understood in context.Cheri Estes, Detroit Country Day School Middle School, Beverly Hills, MICopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Gr. 3-5. Ninety per cent of Lithuania's Jews were killed in


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The Holocaust is a complex topic that cannot be understood in a vacuum. Knowledge of how difficult it was to leave Europe in the late 1930's clarifies the Nazi entrapment of the Jews. This compelling picture book shows one middle class family who bartered every penny in exchange for the right to travel across Russia to Japan, and finally to Canada. The long journey begins in Lithuania when Father boldly flags down the car of a kind Japanese consul and obtains visas for him and the two children. But Mother is almost left behind because she is Russian-born and needs separate papers. Later, Mother is forced to give up the family's last sum of money along with her wedding ring to enter Japan. An especially disquieting moment comes when immigration officials force another Jewish family on the Trans-Siberian Express off the train. American-born students often have no frame of reference for the desperation of war refugees who must buy their way to freedom. This book will help them understand. Stephen Taylor's poignant illustrations are interspersed with archival photographs, maps, and historical sidebars. Teachers who cover the Holocaust should definitely include this book in their curriculum.


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