Courage to Dream

A few months ago I wrote my first Holocaust adjacent piece. It was a short story, because I don’t think I can carry those particular feelings for the extended period that a novel would require, and deeply personal. It was also something that surprised me, because Holocaust narratives have never come easily to me. Not solely because I am primarily a writer of joy, but also because the fear of persecution was palpable for me during my childhood. I am grateful for the education I received, especially in a society where polls show that many gentile young people don’t even know what the Holocaust was, but I can’t recall a time in which I did not know that there were people who believed I was less than human simply for being born Jewish. Needless to say, this deeply messed me up. I am not afraid to admit that. The reality of the Holocaust is an emotionally scarring thing for a sensitive child to know in vivid detail. Which is why I appreciated the path taken by Neal Shusterman and Andrés Vera Martínez  in their YA graphic novel Courage to Dream. 

Courage to Dream features several short narratives about the Holocaust, and it doesn’t shy away from how truly awful it was, how a portion of humanity treated another portion of humanity like less than animals, but it also includes messages of hope and resistance. There is a fine line to walk between Holocaust education and trauma voyeurism. Veer too much to either side and you run the risk of sugar coating a tragedy or terrifying the living daylights out of children (and not in the good horror novel kind of way). Author and illustrator both manage to find what felt to me like a happy medium here, providing enough detail to get the message across. 

My favorite narrative was the last one, in which a young lady sees what her family would have looked like without so many branches cut off prematurely. There are entire families of cousins, holidays full of the chaos of cramming too many people into a space that just manages to fit them, a support system that she currently lacks. It is a visceral reminder of what was lost, a gut punch delivered with a tender loving embrace afterwards. The narrator of that story strives to create a better future and I hope the readers leave with that spirit too. 

There are also lighter moments – when you get to the story with the coat rod you’ll know what I mean – and Baba Yaga makes an appearance as a resistance fighter. Lesser known war stories are given the spotlight right along with the more widely known concentration camps. Public memory of even the more widely publicized aspects of the Holocaust has faded recently and Courage to Dream serves as a good reminder, especially in a time of rising antisemitism. 

It also serves as a means for young people to engage with this history and be inspired to take action in their own lives and communities. The topic is heavy but it provides hope for humanity which I think is important for young readers. But maybe also for this particular adult reader too. 

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