Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

Gr 7 Up—Mayer recounts the inspiring story of Irena Sendler, the Catholic Polish social worker who organized a rescue network to hide 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust, and frames it with a present-day story of three Protestant teens in Kansas creating a National History Project play about her life. Sendler's own life history is dramatic and inspiring; she was brutally tortured by the Nazis in the infamous Pawiak prison, and her extraordinary good work during the war was suppressed by communist Poland and remained virtually unknown for 60 years. Narrator Patrick Lawlor does an excellent job conveying the suspense and tension in Sendler's life. Lawlor's voice lends the right emotion and inflection to each character. He realistically re-creates the distinguishing inflections of each generation as the American teens travel to Poland to interview survivors and meet Irena Sendler herself.