Once (Gleitzman novel) facts for kids

Once is a 2005 children's novel by Australian author Morris Gleitzman. It is about a Jewish boy named Felix who lived in Poland and is on a quest to find his book-keeper parents after he sees Nazis burning the books from a Catholic orphanage in which had stayed at for 3 years and 8 months. He finds a girl, who is unconscious, called Zelda in a burning house with her dead parents—he takes her with him and protects her from confronting her parents' death by telling her stories. Although Once is a work of fiction, Gleitzman was inspired by the story of Janusz Korczak, the events of World War II, and Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe.

Once was translated into German (Einmal) and was nominated for the 2010 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis; it won the 2011 Katholischer Kinder- und Jugendbuchpreis [de].

The sequels to the book are Then (2009), Now (2010), After (2012), Soon (2015) and Maybe (2017). In chronological order of Felix's life, the books are Once, Then, After, Soon, Maybe and Now. Gleitzman has announced that the title of the final book in the series will be Always.

See also

In Spanish: Una vez para niños