On February first, the Jewish Literature for Children Western Conference was held in Los Angeles where teachers, writers and librarians gathered to discuss the Holocaust in literature from elementary school through high school.  What that conference focused on was how it’s best to portray such an even to children but what I want to ask is, how young is too young?

The Holocaust is a horrible fact of human nature.  The last time I deeply studied it it was for a Jewish American literature class in college and I was literally bordering on a depression by the time I had that term paper written.  Can you imagine what 2 tons of hair looks like?  That was one of the things the liberators found at Auschwitz.  Can you even begin to picture how much hair that actually is, and then what happened to the bodies it was once attached to?

Granted children, especially of the picture book age, wouldn’t spend months at a time immersed in such information.  But a picture book about the Holocaust for children just seems a little oxymoronic to me (in terms of content) .  Yes, I think children should learn this history.  I think it’s extraordinarily important for them to learn it but should they be exposed to those kinds of visuals at such a young age?

Let’s take Angel Girl, that notorious book that was recalled because the love story turned out to be false (although the author’s time in the concentration camp wasn’t).  Many librarians don’t like that this book was recalled because it’s a means of freedom of speech and would much rather add an addendum to the book about the falsity of the love story.  Others feel that it could cause others to question the reality of other books because of the fictionalization of this one.  I can understand both sides but I want to add this – why can’t it be just a little bit fictionalized?

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