Written by Amanda West Lewis
Illustrated by Abigail Rajunov
Kids Can Press
978-1-5253-1024-9
80 pp.
Ages 8–12
June 2026
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| From Looking at the Sky: How Dr. Janucz Korczak Fought for Children's Rights, written by Amanda West Lewis, illustrated by Abigail Rajunov |
In the early 1920s, Izaak Dembinski is living with his Mama, and sisters Chana, Zofia and Sara in Warsaw, Poland. Izaak's father was a soldier who'd died before Izaak was born. The family's life is one of austerity but there are moments of togetherness that brings respite from everything. But when Mama dies from tuberculosis, seven-year-old Izaak goes to Dom Sierot (which means Home for Orphans), while his sisters go to work at a laundry and a store.
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| From Looking at the Sky: How Dr. Janucz Korczak Fought for Children's Rights, written by Amanda West Lewis, illustrated by Abigail Rajunov |
Unlike the orphanages of many fictionalized stories, Dom Sierot gives Izaak opportunities. Under the directorship of Dr. Korczak, Izaak is able to receive health care, schooling, time for play, and safety. He gets food with meat which he hadn't had for ages and he is allotted a bed and a small dresser. He learns the value of doing chores and about justice at the weekly children's court. Compared to his sisters, whom Izaak gets to visit on weekends, and who work so hard for so little, Izaak is experiencing a childhood of stability, of care, and of learning.
When he is released from Dom Sierot at age fourteen and is anxious about what he will do next, Dr. Korczak advises him that...
We can give you only one thing: hope. Hope of a better life, a life of truth and justice. (pg. 47)
Regardless of how difficult their lives have been, Izaak's sisters have saved carefully so that he might travel to Canada to stay with their mother's sister and to continue his schooling and get a good job. With the life lessons he has learned from Pan Doctor and matron Pani Stefa, Izaak has learned how to work hard and how to deal with people, and succeed. But when Hitler invades Poland in 1939, Izaak finds it near impossible to keep connected them and his sisters.
Looking at the Sky is based on the remembrances of a former Dom Sierot child whom Amanda West Lewis befriended. While Izaak and the other children in the story are fictional, their experiences would have been very real. And Dr. Janusz Korczak, a man who founded several orphanages in Warsaw, one Catholic and one Jewish, published stories for children, had a national radio program, and gave hope to many through his good work, was quite authentic. Looking at the Sky tells his story through that of a child who might have been at Dom Sierot and who may have been blessed with the caring and life lessons extended to him there. By telling Dr. Korczak's story from the perspective of one who benefited from his kindness and compassion, Amanda West Lewis makes Looking at the Sky less of a biography and more of a tribute to an extraordinary man.
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| From Looking at the Sky: How Dr. Janucz Korczak Fought for Children's Rights, written by Amanda West Lewis, illustrated by Abigail Rajunov |
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| From Looking at the Sky: How Dr. Janucz Korczak Fought for Children's Rights, written by Amanda West Lewis, illustrated by Abigail Rajunov |
Perhaps Looking at the Sky gives us but a glimpse into the remarkable legacy of Dr. Korczak—his reputation as a pediatrician, author, educator, and children's rights advocate could fill books—but it is a personal and tender look at how the man influenced and inspired others with his warmheartedness and his insight. And, with Amanda West Lewis's appended note and bibliography, young readers can look beyond to learn more about this great man.
