In 1941 Laibale Gillman was a typical teenager living in Kaunas, Lithuania, when Nazi troops forced his family and thousands of other Jews into Kovno Ghetto, where they endured persistent threats of beatings, starvation and death. Laibale, showing courage beyond his years, lived up to his nickname of "the Little Lion," and devised a plan that helped several family members escape to freedom--at a time when some 40,000 individuals (the vast majority of them Jews) were being executed within a few miles. "The Little Lion" is the remarkable story of this selfless teen's heroism and chutzpah during the horrors of the Holocaust.
"Nancy Wright Beasley has written the poignant and haunting
story of Laibale Gillman, an unassuming and ordinary teenage
boy who found strength, courage, and purpose when
faced with the evils of Nazi Germany, which threatened the
survival of his family and community. Stoked by the flames
of her earlier book, Izzy's Fire, Nancy returns to her passion
through The Little Lion, an in-depth character s
