The Flag With Fifty-six Stars: A Gift from the Survivors of Mauthausen - Softcover

Susan Goldman Rubin is the author of the award-winning "Fireflies in the Dark" (Holiday House) and "Searching for Anne Frank" (Harry N. Abrams. She wrote this book at the suggestion of her friend and colleague, Adaire Klein, the archivist at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, California, where the actual flag is on display.

Bill Farnsworth has been illustrating books for more than twenty years. Among the many books he has illustrated for children are The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate by Janice Cohn, Mississippi Going North by Sanna Anderson Baker, and THE BUFFALO jump by Peter Roop. He is a resident of Venice, Florida.

Grade 3-5–In the spring of 1945, U.S. troops marched into the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria to liberate surviving prisoners and were given an American flag that had been secretly made by a group of detainees there. This is an inspiring account of the camp, its survivors, and its liberators. Using scraps and whatnot found at the camp, the prisoners secretly worked to create a gift for their American heroes. A photograph shows a carefully hand-stitched and well-thought-out flag. Although it has the correct 13 stripes, the prisoners overestimated the number of stars needed. Nazi atrocities are muted here, but the sorrow, hunger, hopelessness, and, finally, optimism shine through in the pictures and in the text. Large type is set in boxes on softly hued backgrounds. Full-page illustrations intensify the text, and an afterword explains that it is unknown exactly who made the flag. This heartening, unique volume makes a fine introduction to the Holocaust for students just beginning to learn about the evils of the era. The impressive bibliography includes books, videos, interviews, letters, and Internet sites.–Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI
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