December 11, 2003

Karen Levine never had plans to write a book.

Then in 2001, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. radio producer came across an article in the Canadian Jewish News about a young Japanese woman, urged on by Tokyo schoolchildren studying the Holocaust, who traveled halfway round the world to find the owner of a child\’s battered suitcase. That child, Hana Brady, had died in Auschwitz at age 13, but the determined young woman tracked down Hana\’s brother George, who had survived Auschwitz and found a new life in Toronto.

Levine made a radio documentary chronicling the meeting between Fumiko Ishioka and George Brady, and that led her to write a children\’s book, \”Hana\’s Suitcase,\” a gripping detective story and an inspirational saga.