Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Agent, graphic novel, holocaust, roaring brook

The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Graphic Memoir of Hope & Survival

Published Sun, 02 Oct 2022 05:56:11 -0500

Last updated Sun, 09 Jul 2023 07:37:52 -0500

The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival, is a new middle-grade graphic memoir written by Holocaust survivor Estelle Nadel with Bethany Strout and drawn by debut artist Sammy Savos. The memoir details Estelle's once-happy childhood growing up in a tight-knit Jewish family in a small Polish village, and its abrupt interruption when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. A harrowing story of survival, loss, new beginnings, and immeasurable acts of kindness.

Estelle Nadel was seven years old when her sister, her brother, and father were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Nadel and her younger brother were, instead, jailed, but she managed to escape with her brother through her jail's window. They hid in a Polish attic for the next two years as the war played out around her. By the time she came to the USA a few years later, she discovered that her mother, father, older brother and older sister had all been murdered. She has told her story a number of times but this si the first time as a graphic novel.

Co-writer Bethany Strout is a Licensing Associate Manager at Spotify who previously launched the audiobook publishing house, OrangeSky Audio when she was Acquisitions Editor at Findaway. And Sammy Savos is a comic book artist but also a storyboard artist who has worked on shows at Cartoon Network, Titmouse Inc., and ShadowMachine.

Mekisha Telfer at Roaring Brook has bought world rights to The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival, and publication will be in the winter of 2024. Estelle Nadel and Bethany Strout's agent Jessica Regel at Helm Literary represented the authors on behalf of In This Together Media, and Sammy Savos' agent Charlie Olsen at InkWell Management represented him.

Roaring Brook Press is part of Holtzbrinck Publishers, distributed by Macmillan, which already has a graphic novel imprint First: Second, but now is increasing its own central graphic novel list for children.

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