THE SECRET OF PRIEST’S GROTTO
By Peter Lane Taylor and Christos Nicola
Kar-Ben, 2007
Category: Middle grade non-fiction
I discovered this book on the Cybils MG/YA Nonfiction list … and now that I have read it I see why it’s there.
Priest’s Grotto is the ninth-longest cave in the world, part of an enormous gypsum cave system in western Ukraine, and the setting for an incredible true story. At the end of World War II, an extended family of Jews hid from Hitler’s soldiers in Priest’s Grotto. For nearly one year, thirty-nine men, women, and children (the youngest was only two) survived—barely—in the dark, damp cavern. Theirs is a powerful story of courage and survival. This a book for your MUST READ list.