The picture book inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film The Green Book

Ruth was so excited to take a trip in her family's new car! In the early 1950s, few African Americans could afford to buy cars, so this would be an adventure. But she soon found out that Black travelers weren't treated very well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to Black people. Daddy was upset about something called Jim Crow laws . . .

Finally, a friendly attendant at a gas station showed Ruth's family The Green Book. It listed all of the places that would welcome Black travelers. With this guidebook--and the kindness of strangers--Ruth could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to her grandma's house in Alabama.

Ruth's story is fiction, but The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of African American travelers avoid some of the indignities of Jim Crow are historical fact.

[A] narrative of unfathomable courage --Wall Street Journal

The Nine follows the true story of the author's great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten-day journey across the front lines of WWII from Germany back to Paris.

The nine women were all under thirty when they joined the resistance. They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked escape routes to Spain and hid Jewish children in scattered apartments. They were arrested by French police, interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. They were subjected to a series of French prisons and deported to Germany. The group formed along the way, meeting at different points, in prison, in transit, and at Ravensbrück. By the time they were enslaved at the labor camp in Leipzig, they were a close-knit group of friends. During the final days of the war, forced onto a death march, the nine chose their moment and made a daring escape. Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative by Gwen Strauss is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.

El libro ilustrado que sirvió de inspiración para la película ganadora del premio de la Academia El libro verde

Ruth estaba muy emocionada de realizar un viaje en el nuevo coche de su familia! A inicios de la década de 1950, pocos afroamericanos podían permitirse comprar un coche, por lo que esto sería una aventura. Pero pronto se dio cuenta que en muchos pueblos los viajeros negros no eran bienvenidos. Muchos hoteles y estaciones de servicio se negaban a atender a personas negras. Papá estaba muy molesto por algo que se llamaba las leyes de Jim Crow . . .

Finalmente, un empleado amable en una estación de servicio le mostró a la familia de Ruth El libro verde. El libro indicaba todos los lugares que aceptaban a viajeros negros. Con esta guía, y la amabilidad de algunos extraños, Ruth pudo finalmente realizar un viaje seguro desde Chicago a la casa de su abuela en la Alabama rural.

La historia de Ruth es ficción, pero El libro verde y cómo ayudó a toda una generación de viajeros afroamericanos a evitar algunas de las humillaciones de Jim Crow son hechos reales.

The picture book inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film The Green Book

Ruth was so excited to take a trip in her family's new car! In the early 1950s, few African Americans could afford to buy cars, so this would be an adventure. But she soon found out that Black travelers weren't treated very well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to Black people. Daddy was upset about something called Jim Crow laws . . .

Finally, a friendly attendant at a gas station showed Ruth's family The Green Book. It listed all of the places that would welcome Black travelers. With this guidebook--and the kindness of strangers--Ruth could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to her grandma's house in Alabama.

Ruth's story is fiction, but The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of African American travelers avoid some of the indignities of Jim Crow are historical fact.

El libro ilustrado que sirvió de inspiración para la película ganadora del premio de la Academia El libro verde

Ruth estaba muy emocionada de realizar un viaje en el nuevo coche de su familia! A inicios de la década de 1950, pocos afroamericanos podían permitirse comprar un coche, por lo que esto sería una aventura. Pero pronto se dio cuenta que en muchos pueblos los viajeros negros no eran bienvenidos. Muchos hoteles y estaciones de servicio se negaban a atender a personas negras. Papá estaba muy molesto por algo que se llamaba las leyes de Jim Crow . . .

Finalmente, un empleado amable en una estación de servicio le mostró a la familia de Ruth El libro verde. El libro indicaba todos los lugares que aceptaban a viajeros negros. Con esta guía, y la amabilidad de algunos extraños, Ruth pudo finalmente realizar un viaje seguro desde Chicago a la casa de su abuela en la Alabama rural.

La historia de Ruth es ficción, pero El libro verde y cómo ayudó a toda una generación de viajeros afroamericanos a evitar algunas de las humillaciones de Jim Crow son hechos reales.

The picture book inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film The Green Book

Ruth was so excited to take a trip in her family's new car! In the early 1950s, few African Americans could afford to buy cars, so this would be an adventure. But she soon found out that Black travelers weren't treated very well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to Black people. Daddy was upset about something called Jim Crow laws . . .

Finally, a friendly attendant at a gas station showed Ruth's family The Green Book. It listed all of the places that would welcome Black travelers. With this guidebook--and the kindness of strangers--Ruth could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to her grandma's house in Alabama.

Ruth's story is fiction, but The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of African American travelers avoid some of the indignities of Jim Crow are historical fact.

[A] narrative of unfathomable courage... Ms. Strauss does her readers--and her subjects--a worthy service by returning to this appalling history of the courage of women caught up in a time of rapacity and war. --Wall Street Journal

Utterly gripping. --Anne Sebba, author of Les Parisiennes

A compelling, beautifully written story of resilience, friendship and survival. The story of Women's resistance during World War II needs to be told and The Nine accomplishes this in spades. --Heather Morris, New York Times bestselling author of Cilka's Journey

The Nine follows the true story of the author's great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a ten-day journey across the front lines of WWII from Germany back to Paris.

The nine women were all under thirty when they joined the resistance. They smuggled arms through Europe, harbored parachuting agents, coordinated communications between regional sectors, trekked escape routes to Spain and hid Jewish children in scattered apartments. They were arrested by French police, interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo. They were subjected to a series of French prisons and deported to Germany. The group formed along the way, meeting at different points, in prison, in transit, and at Ravensbrück. By the time they were enslaved at the labor camp in Leipzig, they were a close-knit group of friends. During the final days of the war, forced onto a death march, the nine chose their moment and made a daring escape.

Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative from Gwen Strauss is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.

A profoundly moving celebration of love under the darkest of circumstances

From the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable. Czech Milena was Kafka's first translator and epistolary lover, and a journalist opposed to fascism. A non-conformist, bi-sexual feminist, she was way ahead of her time. With the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, her home became a central meeting place for Jewish refugees. German Margarete, born to a middle-class family, married the son of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. But soon swept up in the fervor of the Bolshevik Revolution, she met her second partner, the Communist Heinz Neumann. Called to Moscow for his political deviations, he fell victim to Stalin's purges while Margarete was exiled to the hell of the Soviet gulag. Two years later, traded by Stalin to Hitler, she ended up outside Berlin in Ravensbrück, the only concentration camp built for women.

Milena and Margarete loved each other at the risk of their lives. But in the post-war survivors' accounts, lesbians were stigmatized, and survivors kept silent. This book explores those silences, and finally celebrates two strong women who never gave up and continue to inspire. As Margaret wrote: I was thankful for having been sent to Ravensbrück, because it was there I met Milena.