David A. Adler was one of the first authors to write picture book biographies, long before it became a trend, and he is still one of the best. Here he adroitly manages to introduce young readers to a complex person living in nearly incomprehensible times. As a young man in Warsaw, Henryk Goldszmit took the pen name Janusz Korczak to hide the fact that he was Jewish. After receiving his medical degree and working in a children’s hospital, Korczak became the Director of a Jewish orphans’ home. He became so committed to the children that he refused to leave them after the wall was built around the Warsaw Ghetto, or later as they were all herded onto the train that would take them to Treblinka and certain death. Adler’s straightforward declarative sentences are accompanied by dramatic oil paintings of Korczak with the children. (Ages 8-14)

Janusz Korczak was an author, radio personality, teacher, and doctor. But above all else he was a hero. As the beloved director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, Poland, during the years of the Nazi Party's rise to power, he cared for hundreds of children. They loved him as a father and affectionately called him their "Old Doctor." Korczak could not save his children, but even in the darkest days of the Warsaw ghetto, he strove to protect them. Fianlly, forced to lead his orphans from the ghetto to the Treblinka death camp, Korczak remained with them to the end. This moving account of Janusz Korczak's life provides a powerful introduction to the tragedies of the Holocaust, but also highlights a remarkable story of courage in its midst.