An Elephant Tree Christmas by Lynne Kositsky

When France surrenders to Germany, Esther no longer feels safe and goes on the run, eventually joining the French underground. 'Esther's longing for her family and feelings of depression make her a very real character and her increasing losses and loneliness draw readers into her experiences,' observed Beth L. Life is difficult for Esther: she misses her mother and father, endures the taunts of her fellow refugees, and lives in squalor. Esther, a Jewish girl who fled Nazi Germany, finds sanctuary in a French castle with a group of refugee children. Wrenching Holocaust fiction' by a critic in Kirkus Reviews, was published in 2004. In her 2004 novel Lynne Kositsky recounts the experiences of an unhappy Jewish teen whose hopes to escape Nazi persecution shrink to the point of desperation. According to School Library Journal contributor Lynn Bryant, 'Kositsky does give a sense of the sights, sounds, smells, and people of sixteenth-century London and addresses the debate over who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.' The Thought of High Windows, described as 'superb, After she lands work with an acting company, Perin begins to suspect that the true genius behind the stage dramas she helps to produce is Edward Vere, the earl of Oxford.

While on a field trip to the Globe Theatre in London, Perin Willoughby suddenly finds herself back in Elizabethan England, where she meets the boorish Will Shakspeare and a host of other colorful characters. In A Question of Will, another time-travel story, Kositsky looks at the controversy surrounding the authorship of William Shakespeare's plays. 'Estie's life and through her, Anya's learning to accept and cherish her Jewish identity, are the heart of the story,' noted a critic in Resource Links. Each time Anya lights a candle, she learns more about Estie's history, including her daring escape to England. When Anya lights the first candle, she is transported back in time to pre-World War II Germany, where she enters the life of Estie, a Jewish girl. Candles focuses on a young girl named Anya whose grandmother gives her an old menorah as a Hanukkah gift. Kositsky's debut novel, Candles, appeared in 1998.

An Elephant Tree Christmas by Lynne Kositsky