Then

Then opens with Felix and Zelda running for their lives from a train taking them to a concentration camp. Both orphaned children, first seen in Once, know that if they fall into the hands of the Nazis again they will be killed.

Felix’s gift for storytelling and passionate love for the books of Richmal Compton helps to sustain the pair against the danger of occupied Poland and the fate of Felix’s fellow Jews. The children want to find new parents to protect them but when they find salvation at the home of a kindly Polish woman, they realise their future is still precarious.

Felix narrates the book - his ten-year-old voice recounting acts of great inhumanity but kindness too. This is a thought-provoking and heartbreaking story with inspiring protagonists who, despite the horrors they witness, manage to remain courageous and hopeful.