From idea to printed book, Amanda West Lewis’s graphic novel Looking at the Sky: How Dr. Janusz Korczak Fought for Children’s Rights was more than two decades in the making.
West Lewis, who now calls Brooke Valley home, first learned about Janusz Korczak in 2005 from a gentleman named Leon Gluzman, who had, as a boy, lived in an orphanage in Warsaw where Korczak was director. Gluzman was, as they say, “a “Korczak Orphan.”
“Leon had grown up in Dom Seirot, one of Korczak’s orphanages, in the 1920s,” West Lewis explains. “When we met, I was the Artistic Director of a theatre school (The Ottawa School of Speech & Drama) and Leon was the landlord for our building. Although he was very elderly when I met him, his eyes brimmed with tears when he spoke about ‘Pan Doctor’ and his childhood at the Dom Seirot.”
Because of her chance meeting with Leon Gluzman, West Lewis felt she had a small personal connection to Dr. Korczak. She began researching his life and work.
“I became passionate about wanting to tell his story,” she says. “I wanted young people to know about Korczak’s important legacy. I wanted them to see what a huge difference it makes when adults treat children with respect. So I developed a three-year project with young theatre students, creating a workshop play in honour of Leon Gluzman and Janusz Korczak. In 2009, that workshop project became a commissioned play (The Children’s Republic by Hannah Moscovitch) that I co-produced at The Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa.”
Still, after the play’s successful run, West Lewis realized she hadn’t finished with the material.
“I felt like I had helped to tell the story but had not had a chance to fully explore Korczak’s ideas,” she says. “Because of the horror of Korczak’s murder in the Holocaust, we can lose sight of his major accomplishments as a child educator. I’ve always thought he would want to be known for his ideas, not for his murder.”
Looking at the Sky warmly explores Korczak’s unconventional ideas, the ones he would best be remembered for — that all children should be treated with love and respect, that they be given responsibilities and rights in their homes, and that they learn they are responsible for their actions.
In 2015, West Lewis started trying to explore ways of writing a story filled with “Korczak’s heart.”
“First, I tried writing a middle-grade biography,” she recalls, “but it was flat and heavy. Then in 2017, I tried writing the story as a picture book biography. But as my editor Kathleen Keenan was quick to point out, there was much too much material. She suggested I try writing it as a graphic novel. I began that process in 2020.”
Now, six years on, in early May, West Lewis received her first copies of Looking at the Sky. She shared her “unboxing” video on social media, and the acclaimed children’s author, theatre director, and drama teacher was visibly moved. Seeing this book in print, she says, was different from her previous books.
“Yes, I was very surprised. One of the downsides of working on computers is that we don’t have ‘proofs’ the way we used to. I hadn’t actually held the book or seen manuscript ‘pages’ except on screen. Suddenly, it was real. It was a physical object that I could move. It was larger, more substantial, than I had imagined. I hadn’t seen Abigail Rajunov’s amazing illustrations other than on a computer and they were so much warmer, more … real. And of course, it had the great magic of a book — I could flip forward and backward. I could see the story unfolding. It was entirely different from unboxing a novel.”
Looking at the Sky is a masterpiece in gentle storytelling. The book begins in 1923 in Warsaw, Poland; it follows seven-year-old Izaak, who, after his parents die, is sent to Dom Sierot, an orphanage run by Dr. Korczak. Through Izaak’s experiences — through his fears, joys, discoveries, and hopes — we see and feel and hear what life was like in one of Pan Doctor’s orphanages, and we come to love and respect the unusually kind and clever doctor, as Izaak does.
In time, though, when he’s 14, Izaak must leave the orphanage. But Dr. Korczak’s words and novel teachings stay with him. His older sisters have saved money to send Izaak by ship to Canada, where he will live with his aunt and uncle, and forge his own path.
In Ottawa, Izaak thrives in school. Eventually he has his own family and becomes a teacher, like Dr. Korczak. He tries to teach his students what Pan Doctor taught him about respect and love, and to work toward a life of truth and justice. In this way, his mentor’s ideals live on.
That was something West Lewis wanted to emphasize. Korczak’s notions were groundbreaking.
“Korczak put children front and centre,” she says. “He talked about their importance in our society not merely because they are the future, but because they are the present. At the time, his ideas were revolutionary. He advocated for treating children with the same respect that we expect to be treated as an adult. He said that although children have had fewer years of life experience, that does not make them lesser humans. They just have a different, but no less worthy, perspective. To demonstrate it on a simple level, because children are shorter and smaller than adults, we must go to their eye level to speak with them, not at them. This small change of approach can have profound effects on an adult as well as a child.”
Looking at the Sky is a moving, sensitive, uplifting and hopeful book. Abigail Rajunov’s illustrations are indeed warm and real; they help to humanize the story that much more. The images of World War II and the Ghetto in Warsaw are dark and grim, but the words of Dr. Korczak offer hope.
“It is hard to talk about difficult topics with children,” West Lewis points out. “But again, this goes back to having respect for them. These things are part of our collective history and they inform our present. However, one needs to be aware that children feel injustice and pain deeply. Adults must be ready to discuss the inevitable questions that arise.”
Book Launch and Author Talk
Amanda West Lewis will launch her new book at The Book Nook in Perth on Sunday, June 7 from 1–3pm; and at Mill Street Books in Almonte on June 13 from 11am–1pm. She will also give a talk on Wednesday, June 3 at the Perth & District Union Public Library about how the story of Janusz Korczak became a graphic novel — from idea, to manuscript, to printed book. That begins at 5pm. It’s free. You won’t want to miss it. And if you have a young reader in your life, you’ll likely want to buy a copy of Looking at the Sky for them. They would be fortunate if you did. It is a vital and beautiful story.