Margit, Book 1: Home Free

Anne Hutchings, a former elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Durham Board of Education, is an educational consultant.

Home Free is the story of Margit, a strong, courageous, 11-year-old
Jewish girl. After her father is arrested, Margit and her mother flee
Nazi-dominated Czechoslovakia and eventually are given temporary asylum
in Canada. It is April 1944 when Margit and her secretly pregnant mother
(if authorities knew, she wouldn’t be allowed to enter Canada) arrive
in Toronto. Unlike many refugees, Margit and her mother are fortunate to
have relatives who provide them with a home and support until they are
established.

On her first visit to Kensington Market, Margit is befriended by Alice,
who begins to teach her English. When Margit, starting school,
encounters intolerance towards Jews, Alice is there to defend and
champion her.

Though the adjustment to their new life is hard, Margit and her mother
adapt. Her mother gets a job sewing pockets for trousers and collars for
shirts, for which she earns fifty cents per piece. Margit’s
classmates, as they get to know her, become more accepting of her,
although, as Margit herself says, “there are some people who will
never change.” Baby brother Jack is born, the war ends, and the family
is reunited, bringing the story to a satisfying conclusion.

Kathy Kacer has written a realistic and historically accurate novel. No
attempt has been made to gloss over Canada’s abysmal record in
offering refuge to the millions of displaced Jews prior to and during
World War II. As she points out in her introduction, “Meet Margit,”
between 1933 and 1945 the Canadian government under Prime Minister
Mackenzie King admitted only 5000 Jews. During the same period, six
million were murdered.

Short and easily accessible to students in Grades 3 to 6, Home Free
would be an excellent addition to Canadian history collections. And in
view of the recent spate of hate crimes, courses in race relations would
find this a valuable resource. Recommended.