Memory Stones

Written by Kathy Kacer
Illustrated by Hayley Lowe
Second Story Press
978-1-77260-421-4
24 pp.
Ages 6–8
September 2025

Kathy Kacer, award-winning author of historical novels and non-fiction as well as picture books, often embeds her stories in the Holocaust. Being the daughter of Holocaust survivors, her stories reflect the courage and trauma of this genocide and its generational impact. In Memory Stones, her latest picture book, which is illustrated by Vancouver’s Hayley Lowe, Kathy Kacer again entwines multiple generations and shows how a child honours a special intergenerational relationship after her grandmother is gone.

From Memory Stones, written by Kathy Kacer, illustrated by Hayley Lowe

“Sophie loved her granny more than she loved stars or books or her hamster.” With this opening line, Kathy Kacer introduces readers to the meaningful ways Sophie and her grandmother spend time together: going to the ice cream parlour, swinging on swings in the park, skipping stones in the ravine, and tending to a vegetable garden. But when her grandmother dies, Sophie is dismayed to see how the flowers she takes to the cemetery wilt and fade so quickly. Her mother tells her of the tradition of laying stones on the grave as a message to the angels that the person buried there is remembered. Sophie takes that tradition and adapts it to reflect the personal attachment she had with her granny.

From Memory Stones, written by Kathy Kacer, illustrated by Hayley Lowe

For many children, the first death they may experience is that of a grandparent. If it’s a grandparent with whom they’ve had a special bond, as Sophie did with her granny, it can be especially distressing. Kathy Kacer ensures that this connection is recognized by Sophie’s mother who gives the child the opportunity to express her grief as she chooses. By guiding her while encouraging her to make it personal, Kathy Kacer has provided a template on how to help a child through their grief. While the death of a grandparent is often tied up with heartache, illustrator Hayley Lowe uses pencil, gouache and digital tools in subdued but heartfelt colours to blend the sombreness of bereavement with the memories of pleasure derived from a special relationship.

From Memory Stones, written by Kathy Kacer, illustrated by Hayley Lowe

For children who will experience a loss, Memory Stones will reassure them that they can be empowered to make personal choices that may offer comfort and even uplift, whether with the placement of memory stones or with reminiscing about cherished moments.

I Am Not a Number

by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer

Illustrated by Gillian Newland

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-94-4

32 pp.

Ages 7+

September 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Stories like I Am Not a Number should always be told.  They should always be told loudly and emphatically and with purpose, to tell of a wrongdoing that was perpetrated against First Nations families like the Couchie family of Nipissing First Nation.  Tales of children stolen from their homes, under the direction of government, to attend and live at residential schools.  Narratives of holding onto self when everything was done to annihilate that sense.  This is the account of author Jenny Kay Dupuis’ granny, Irene Couchie Dupuis.

In 1928, Irene was living with her father, Chief Ernest Couchie, and her mother and two brothers, George and Ephraim, on Nipissing Reserve Number 10 when the Indian agent of the day demanded the children be surrendered to him to deliver to St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School.  Though her parents protest–her mother especially vehement that eight-year-old Irene needed to be with her family–the children are essentially taken by force.

The children are going with me to the residential school.  They are wards of the government, now.  They belong to us. (pg. 2)

With final goodbyes, her mother telling them to “Never forget home or our ways.  Never forget your mother and father.  Never forget who you are.” (pg. 7), the three children are taken away and separated, boys from girls.  Still Irene tries to stay strong, even after she’s told that she will be known as 759, telling herself “I am not a number.  I am Irene Couchie, daughter of Ernest and Mary Ann Couchie.  I will never forget who I am.” (pg. 8).  And through the horrible showering to “scrub all the brown off” (pg. 9) and the cutting of her long hair–normally only cut when a loved one was lost– and burning of her hands as punishment for speaking her own language, Irene heeds her mother’s words to never forget who she is.

From I Am Not a Number 

by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer, 

illus. by Gillian Newland

After a full year of biting her tongue and dreaming of home, to and from which all letters were banned, Irene and her brothers are sent home for the summer.  As happy as she is to feel the love of her family again, to eat well and speak her own language, Irene is troubled by images of her time at school and her impending return in the fall.  But Irene’s father has other plans for his children and none of them include that horrible place.

Jenny Kay Dupuis does her granny Irene and her heritage honour by telling this story.  It’s a difficult one for all families involved in the residential school debacle, even for generations afterwards but one that Jenny Kay Dupuis tells, in collaboration with award-winning historical fiction and non-fiction writer Kathy Kacer, to inform and clarify for young readers.  It’s a shocking tragedy from our history but one from which we can only hope all learn valuable lessons.  I Am Not a Number is illustrated compassionately by Gillian Newland, who also illustrated Kathy Kacer’s The Magician of Auschwitz (Second Story Press, 2014) and A Boy Asked the Wind (Barbara Nickel, Red Deer Press, 2015). In the realistic style of Alex Colville and using the sombre tones of greys, blacks and browns for the residential school and a similar palette with splashes of gold and green away from that setting, Gillian Newland evokes the appropriate sentiment the book.  I Am Not a Number may be illustrated and classified as juvenile non-fiction but the extensive text and the account within is a mature one, yet one that can be told and taught and learned with empathy and as tribute.

From I Am Not a Number 

by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer, 

illus. by Gillian Newland

Secrets Blog Tour is coming!

Sh-h-h...  but tell everyone:

Secrets

to be revealed

September 29, 2015

The newest series of seven books, orchestrated by Eric Walters for Orca Book Publishers, is on its way, ready to tell the seven concurrent stories of seven young women raised at the Benevolent Home for Necessitous Girls in the town of Hope, Ontario.  The year is 1964.  When a fire rips through the building, the seven oldest girls–Toni, Sara, Betty, Tess, Malou, Dot and Cady–are each given an envelope with some things, perhaps clues, from their pre-orphanage days.  And therein lie the stories of Secrets.

And if you're the only one who hasn't seen the fantastic notice for the series, here it is:

Starting next Tuesday, blogs across the internet will host the blog tour for the release of Secrets.  I'm pleased to announce that I will be hosting a review of My Life Before Me and a Q & A with the book's author, Norah McClintock.  I was thrilled to be asked and delighted to share the honour with readers of CanLit for LittleCanadians.

Here are the list of books and their stops on the blog tour:

Innocent 
by Eric Walters

Hosted by Lost in a Great Book
Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Shattered Glass
by Teresa Toten

Hosted by Spellbound Book Reviews
Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The Unquiet Past
by Kelley Armstrong

Hosted by Ya Book Shelf
Thursday, October 1, 2015

Stones on a Grave
by Kathy Kacer

Hosted by teenreads
Friday, October 2, 2015

My Life Before Me
by Norah McClintock

Hosted by CanLit for LittleCanadians
Saturday, October 3, 2015

A Big Dose of Lucky
by Marthe Jocelyn

Hosted by Lost in a Great Book
Sunday, October 4, 2015

Small Bones
by Vicki Grant

Hosted by Pop! goes the reader
Monday, October 5, 2015






Mark September 29-October 5 on your calendar and please join me and others in celebrating the release of a series that is sure to get readers (ages 12+) excited about reading, a different era, and the secrets that make for great stories.

The Magician of Auschwitz

Written by Kathy Kacer

Illustrated by Gillian Newland

Second Story Press

978-1-927583-46-3

32 pp.

Ages 7+

For release September 5, 2014

Yesterday, Second Story Press added a unique title to its auspicious collection of Holocaust remembrance books: The Magician of Auschwitz by Kathy Kacer, illustrated by Gillian Newland.  As befits a picture book recounting any event that would take place in one of World War II's most horrific concentration camps, The Magician of Auschwitz is dark and sombre in tone and atmosphere, both in its text and its graphics.

A young boy, Werner, is delivered to the Auschwitz concentration camp, alone, separated from his mother and sister.  In the cramped barracks and overcrowded bunks, Werner learns quickly enough that only the strong will survive. This makes him even more curious about Herr Levin, a gentle, soft-spoken, middle-aged man with whom Werner shares the uppermost bunk.

The physical and emotional hardships of the days at the concentration camp are only accentuated by the dark nights of fear-filled sleep.  When guards come in the night and demand that Herr Levin do his magic, Werner anxiously watches as his bunkmate performs card tricks for the guards' entertainment.  There are more nights when they are awoken and Herr Levin works his magic, with cards, string and coins.  And, though Werner believes Herr Levin will benefit from his entertaining acts for the soldiers, Herr Levin makes it clear that, "This is not a game, and it is not a show." (pg. 16) He was performing for his life.

Kathy Kacer's notes, titled How it Happened, explain the real story behind The Magician of Auschwitz.  In Auschwitz, Werner Reich, the young boy, met Herbert Levin, a man who had been the well-known magician Nivelli the Magician.  There the gentle man shared his tricks with Werner and his compassion and strength of spirit in a horrific situation.

"Someone had cared about him and given him some hope.  There was enough real magic in that for Werner to hold on to." (pg. 24)

Kathy Kacer emphasizes the connection between the boy and magician and their unique relationship based in respect and magic while in the camp.  But the details of their later lives, very separate but still connected, complete their stories so appropriately. And Gillian Newland touches upon the heart of their relationship, a sliver of brightness, among the dark grey-browns of the heartless concentration camp, where survival is everything. There are few splashes of colour in the camp, only the playing cards and a swastika armband.  The power of both is clear. Only in a final illustration of an older Werner Reich with his two sons do warmer tones of orange, olive and turquoise appear.  The message in the words and the illustrations are quite clear.  From the darkness with few lights of hope came brighter lives, though still muted by earlier events that stole much family, hope and life from so many. The Magician of Auschwitz is an important book of accepting hope wherever possible in the most hopeless of situations and from the most surprising of sources.

A touching book trailer for The Magician of Auschwitz may be viewed here.