In-Person
Sunday, December 11, 2022
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (ET)
Seating is first come, first served and requires general registration.
It started as a homework assignment. Thirteen-year-old Aimée Dawson had to ask a grandparent, “What was your life like when you were my age?” No one expected the astonishing story she uncovered: her Ukrainian grandmother Zhanna (alias, Anna) and Zhanna’s sister Frina escaped a Nazi death march with nothing more than their favorite Chopin sheet music and their innate talent as piano prodigies, hiding in plain sight as they played piano for Nazi officers all over Europe. Alias Anna is a book for young people – and those who are young at heart – written in verse by children’s book author Susan Hood together with Zhanna’s son, Greg Dawson.
Susan Hood is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including Lifeboat 12; Ada’s Violin; Shaking Things Up; The Last Straw: Kids vs. Plastics; and Titan and the Wild Boars: The True Cave Rescue of the Thai Soccer Team. She is the recipient of an E.B. White Honor Award, the Christopher Award, the Américas Award, the SCBWI Golden Kite Award, and the Bank Street Flora Steiglitz Straus Award.
Greg Dawson has been a journalist for over 50 years, winning awards for his work as a TV critic, columnist, and feature writer at magazines and newspapers including The Boston Herald, Indianapolis Star, and Orlando Sentinel. He is the author of two books on the Holocaust, Hiding in the Spotlight and Judgement Before Nuremberg, and Busted in Bloomington, a collective memoir of the ‘60s written with his wife, Candy Dawson.