Silent as a Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue
Silent as a Stone memorializes the life of Mother Maria Skobtsova, an unconventional nun who aided the persecuted Jewish people in occupied France
during WWII.
Confronting the horror of Nazi brutality, Mother
Maria devised an ingenious plan to save Jewish
children destined for extermination camps: Paris
garbage collectors, upon her urging, hid the
children in trash cans and whisked them to safe
havens outside the city.
Mother Maria, for her selfless rescue activities,
perished in a gas chamber in Ravensbrück camp in
Germany in 1945. Today, she is among the
"righteous gentiles" honored in Israel and a
canonized saint in the Orthodox Christian Church.
"In the spirit of Allen Say's Grandfather's
Journey and Patricia Polacco's The Keeping Quilt,
Silent as a Stone conveys the hope and heartbreak
of life in a bite-size form that children can
manage. Stunningly illustrated and tenderly told,
Silent as a Stone tells the story of three
unforgettable lives and the countless lives they
touched. Mother Maria, Yuri, and Fr Dimitri serve
as examples to us all-and especially to our
children-who must find the path of love through
our broken world."
-Jenny Schroedel, author of The Blackbird's Nest:
Saint Kevin of Ireland and The Everything Saints
Book
"Silent as a Stone is an incredible resource for
the Orthodox Christian community to learn about
the heroic and courageous deeds of Mother Maria.
Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press should be
commended for bringing this story to light and
honoring Mother Maria with such a beautifully
illustrated and inspiring book."
-Rachel Kamin, Director, Temple Israel Libraries & Media Center
"Mother Maria is a saint of our day and for our
day; a woman of flesh and blood possessed by the
love of God, who stood face to face with the
problems of this century."
+Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
AUTHOR
Journalism and peace work have been major
ingredients in author Jim Forest's life. He is
secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship and
editor of its journal, In Communion. He is a
recipient of the Peacemaker Award from Notre Dame
University's Institute for International Peace
Studies. He is a prolific writer of
inspirational, historical, and bio-graphical
books, most recently of The Wormwood File: E-Mail
from Hell. Jim makes his home in Alkmaar,
Holland, near Amsterdam. He is father to six
children and grandfather to four. Silent as a
Stone is his third children's book.
ILLUSTRATOR
Dasha Pancheshnaya was born in Moscow, Russia in
1980 and immigrated to the United States with her
family in 1991. She holds a BFA in Illustration
from the Fashion Institute of Technology and
presently participates in various disciplines of
visual art including graphic design and
illustration. Influenced by Russian artists of
the nineteenth century, masters of the Italian
Renaissance, and Art Nouveau, she currently is a
student of the Prosopon School of Iconology.
ISBN 978-0-881-41314-4
32pp
Price: US $18.00
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