Kathy Kacer has 5 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is Stones on a Grave.
Stones on a Grave
Summary
Sara has never been out of the tiny town of Hope, Ontario, where she has been in an orphanage all her life. After a fire destroys the orphanage, clues about her parentage, a medical certificate, and a Star of David lead her to Germany. Sara arrives in Germany determined to explore her newly discovered Jewish heritage and solve the mystery of her parentage. What she encounters is a country still dealing with the aftermath of the Holocaust. With the help of a handsome, English-speaking German boy, she discovers the sad facts of her mother's brief existence and faces the horrible truth about her father. Ultimately, the knowledge she gains opens up her world and leads her to a deeper understanding of herself.
©2015 Kathy Kacer (P)2015 Orca Book Publishers
Clara's War
Summary
It's a dangerous time for 13-year-old Clara and her family. They have just been imprisoned in Terezin (Terezinstadt), a ghetto in a medieval town near Prague - which was built to show the world how "well" the Nazis were treating Jews during the Second World War. Here Clara encounters hunger, disease and filthy living conditions. Even worse is the constant threat of being deported to concentration camps where the possibility of death awaits her.But in the midst of the horror of these conditions, Clara makes strong friendships with Hanna, a girl from home, and Jacob, an older boy who helps her learn about life in the ghetto. She also participates in classes where education, music, and poetry flourish. Life in the ghetto takes an unusual turn for the young people when a children's opera, Brundibar, written by an inmate, allows them moments of joy and laughter. With a real escape being planned by Jacob, a family tragedy to confront, and an inspection tour from the Red Cross at hand, Clara has some life-challenging decisions to make.Inspired by real events, particularly by performances of Brundibar, this compelling work for readers 10 and up includes a review of the performance written by a young boy in an underground ghetto newspaper, adding further depth to the book.
©2001 Kathy Kacer (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
The Diary of Laura's Twin
Summary
A mysterious diary links modern-day Laura to Sara, a young Jewish girl fighting to stay alive during World War II. Laura has just three weeks to go before her Jewish "coming of age" ceremony, called a Bat Mitzvah, when she is assigned a special project. She is to read the diary of Sara Gittler, a young girl her own age who was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. Sara never had the chance to celebrate her coming of age, so Laura is to learn about Sara's life and then share her Bat Mitzvah with her "twin" by speaking of her at the ceremony. Reluctant to undertake the project at first, Laura quickly becomes caught up by Sara's struggle to survive. Sara's diary unfolds with the details of her daily life in the ghetto, a world full of fear, confusion, tragedy, and, above all, courage. From Sara's brave story in the past, Laura learns how to find her own courage to confront the possibility of a friend's current involvement in the desecration of a Jewish cemetery.
©2008 Kathy Kacer (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
To Look a Nazi in the Eye
Summary
She had expected to hate him. But hate, just like forgiveness, can be complicated. The true story of 19-year-old Jordana Lebowitz’s time at the trial of Oskar Groening, known as the bookkeeper of Auschwitz, a man charged with being complicit in the death of more than 300,000 Jews. A granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Jordana was still not prepared for what she would see and hear. Listening to Groening’s testimony and to the Holocaust survivors who came to testify against him, Jordana came to understand that by witnessing history she gained the knowledge and legitimacy to be able to stand in the footsteps of the survivors who went before her and pass their history - her history - on to the next generation.
©2017 Kathy Kacer with Jordana Lebowitz (P)2021 Second Story Press
Broken Strings
Summary
A violin and a middle-school musical unleash a dark family secret in this moving story by an award-winning author duo. For fans of The Devil's Arithmetic and Hana's Suitcase. It's 2002. In the aftermath of the Twin Towers - and the death of her beloved grandmother - Shirli Berman is intent on moving forward. The best singer in her junior high, she auditions for the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof but is crushed to learn that she's been given the part of the old Jewish mother in the musical rather than the coveted part of the sister. But there is an upside: Her "husband" is none other than Ben Morgan, the cutest and most popular boy in the school. Deciding to throw herself into the role, she rummages in her grandfather's attic for some props. There, she discovers an old violin in the corner - strange, since her Zayde has never seemed to like music, never even going to any of her recitals. Showing it to her grandfather unleashes an anger in him she has never seen before, and while she is frightened of what it might mean, Shirli keeps trying to connect with her Zayde and discover the awful reason behind his anger. A long-kept family secret spills out, and Shirli learns the true power of music, both terrible and wonderful.
©2019 Eric Walters and Kathy Kacer (P)2020 Penguin Random House Canada