Seeking Refuge by Irene Watts and Kathryn Shoemaker

Here is a very different graphic novel from the ones I have reviewed this month.  This is a story about a Jewish German girl who is evacuated from Germany right before the instigation of concentration camps.  She is sent to England, but has no family there to take her, so she is passed from home to home.  In some she is treated as a servant, in others she is expected to take the place of a diseased daughter.  None of the hosts respect her religious background or understand her longing to be reunited with her mother again.

This is a touching and sober historical fiction story.  The pictures are done in black and white pencil sketches and monochrome coloring reinforces the serious mood of the story.  This could be a good companion graphic novel to Lois Lowry's Number the Stars.  In some ways it is more culturally balanced because it shows that the British, although they helped the refugees, were not 100% hospitable.  It would be interesting for a group to read both and then compare and contrast them. (134 p.)