Now
Set in the current day, this is the third book in the series that began with Once, continued with Then and is... Now.
Felix is a grandfather. He has achieved much in his life and is widely admired. He has mostly buried the painful memories of his childhood, but they resurface when his granddaughter Zelda comes to stay with him. Together they face a cataclysmic event armed only with their gusto and love - an event that helps them achieve salvation from the past, but also brings the possibility of further destruction.
Prime Minister's Literary Awards Nominee for Children's Fiction (2011)
About the Once Series
Books in series order
Reading age: 12+ years
This series should be read in order.
Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn't know anything about the war, and thinks he's only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them - straight into the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland.
To Felix, everything is a story: Why did he get a whole carrot in his soup? It must be sign that his parents are coming to get him. Why are the Nazis burning books? They must be foreign librarians sent to clean out the orphanage's outdated library. But as Felix's journey gets increasingly dangerous, he begins to see horrors that not even stories can explain. Despite his grim surroundings, Felix never loses hope. Morris Gleitzman takes a painful subject and expertly turns it into a story filled with love, friendship, and even humour, in a series which will enthrall children and engage them in an aspect of history which has often been considered too sensitive for them to understand.