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2004
finalists.

2004 Hackmatack

Children's Choice Book Award/Prix littéraire - le choix de jeunes

In March 2000, a suitcase arrived at a children's Holocaust education centre in Tokyo, Japan. On the outside, in white paint, were these words: Hana Brady, May 16, 1931 and Waisenkind - the German word for orphan.

Children who saw the suitcase on display were full of questions. Who was Hana Brady? What happened to her? They wanted Fumiko Ishioka, the centre's curator, to find the answers.

In a suspenseful journey, Fumiko searches for clues across Europe and North America. The mystery of the suitcase takes her back through seventy years, to a young Hana and her family, whose happy life in a small Czech town was turned upside down by the invasion of the Nazis.

Karen Levine has won many awards for her work in radio, including two prestigious Peabody Awards - one for the documentary Children of the Holocaust. At the CBC, she was executive producer of As It Happens and has produced for many other programs. This book is based on Karen's radio documentary, also called Hana's Suitcase, which appeared on The Sunday Edition.

Thematic Links

• Jewish history and culture
• Children in the Holocaust
• Museums and research
• Solving mysteries
• Helping in a crisis

Suggested Activities

• Visit a museum and research the past of an artifact that interests you. Write a story about the background of object.
• Fill a container with objects that mean something to you, that would capture your life and culture if it was found by someone in the future or a different land.
• Research your family tree.
• Interview someone who had been in a war or conflict.