NICKY & VERA:

NICKY & VERA by Peter Sis

This post is going to be a WHAT WE'RE READING and WHAT WE'RE WATCHING post. We recently just finished watching the amazing movie One Life with Anthony Hopkins based on the true story of Nicholas Winton. When the movie was finished my daughter told me she had read this story in a picture book she had picked up for me that was in my TBR pile. I immediately went and looked, and yes, there was a picture book by Peter Sis entitled Nicky and Vera. I pulled it out and read it.

Nicholas Winton was somebody who just considered himself to be a normal man. This "normal" man took it upon himself to try and help as many Jewish Refugee children in Czechoslovakia find sponsor homes in England to live until the end of the war. He overcame what seemed to be insurmountable hurdles to make this possible. He ended up helping over 600 children escape before Hitler invaded, but he never knew what happened to them. His story is so moving both in a victorious and heartbreaking way as so many WWII stories are.

This is not going to be a picture book or movie for young children. While the book does not go into detail, one of the trains carrying over 200 children never makes it out of the station. In the movie the train is swarmed by Nazis. The movie also shares the brokenness that Nicky feels in his life wondering if the children survived and were reunited with their families. For these reasons, I'm going to go with a 4th grade and up on the book and 8th grade and up on the movie.