In 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II, Ruth Vander Zee and her husband were in Germany where they met Erika, a German Jew, and listened to her story. Between 1933 and 1945 six million Jews were killed. Starved, shot, burned, gassed. Erika survived. Born some time in 1944, Erika does not know exactly when or where. She does not know what her parents called her, or whether or not she had brothers or sisters. But she does know that when she was just a few months old, she was saved from the Holocaust. In a cattle car, on their way to death, Erika's family threw her to life. She was thrown from the train, and taken to a woman who risked her life to care for this baby. She gave her a name, a birthdate, a home, food, clothes, life.

 

There are 32 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2004 by Random House Children's Publishers UK .

Ruth Vander Zee (Author) Ruth was brought up in Chicago. At the age of forty, she decided to get her college degree in education and later began writing stories for children. Ruth and her husband Vern live in Miami, Florida. Roberto Innocenti (Illustrator) Roberto Innocenti was born in 1940 in Bagno a Ripoli, a small town near Florence. Never having attended art school, he went to Rome to work in an animation studio. Returning to Florence, he began designing books and illustrating film and theatre posters. He has illustrated Pinocchio, A Christmas Carol, J. Patrick Lewis's The Last Resort and Ruth Vander Zee's Erika's Story. He lives in Florence with his wife.