"It’s my hope that everyone who reads Felix’s story will want to continue that journey of discovery and connect personally with the real voices of the Holocaust. This story is my imagination trying to grasp the unimaginable. Their stories are the real stories."
- Morris Gleitzman
Morris Gleitzman's own words about writing the novel Once:
"When I first started planning Once I had no idea that a 10 year old Polish Jewish boy would take me on the writing journey of my life. I just wanted to write a story about a friendship. A wonderful friendship between two young people who can’t believe their luck because they’ve found what most of us want more than anything. A true friend.
I knew the characters would discover that you don’t need money or heroic deeds or contacts in high places to enjoy this precious gift. You don’t even need much of an education or particularly posh clothes. Just that special person.
But I didn’t want the story to be too cosy and safe. I wanted to explore every part of friendship. To investigate how friendship survives in tough times. To see if friendship can be tough too.
So I decided to place the two young friends in the middle of the most unfriendly human behaviour possible, on the largest scale I could think of. Which of course meant wartime.
My grandfather was a Jew from Krakow in Poland. As a young man he left Poland, decades before the Holocaust, and ended up living in England. But many members of his family stayed in Poland and most of them were killed by the Nazis.
So researching and writing Once became a personal journey. It took me to Poland for the first time. To the streets of Kazimierz, the ancient Jewish area of Krakow, and to the Jewish cemetery where I found a memorial with my family name on it.
And it allowed me to meet, in my imagination, a boy called Felix. I meet all my characters in my imagination, but never before had I encountered one who stood as an ambassador for so many real children, for so many young lives shattered".
Read this book review for the novel Once.
In this video, Morris Gleitzman discusses how and why he writes.
He discusses Once at about the 3 minute 20 second mark in the video.
Podcast
Once and Always Morris Gleitzman
Sixteen years ago, Morris Gleitzman introduced audiences to Felix: a young Jewish boy struggling to survive during the Holocaust. Over time, what was originally a stand-alone book become a beloved series. In this podcast, Gleitzman talks about the power of friendship and saying goodbye to Felix, with the seventh and final book in the series.
The following book titles inspired Gleitzman to write Once:
The Diary Of A Young Girl by Anne Frank
Born Guilty by Peter Sichrovsky
The Hidden Children by Howard Greenfeld
Children Of The Ghetto by Sheva Glas-Wiener
Konin: A Quest by Theo Richmond
The Boys by Martin Gilbert
Flares Of Memory: Stories Of Childhood During The Holocaust, edited by Anita Brostoff with Sheila Chamovitz
Yiddishland by Gerard Silvain & Henri Minczeles
Children With A Star by Deborah Dwork
Ghetto Diary by Janusz Korczak
Witnesses Of War: Children’s Lives Under The Nazis by Nicholas Stargardt
The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes Of The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert
Holocaust Journey by Martin Gilbert
The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn
The Mascot by Mark Kurzem
Bad Faith by Carmen Cahllil
Into That Darkness by Gitta Sereny
Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth by Gitta Sereny
The German Trauma by Gitta Sereny
Night by Elie Wiesel
If This Is A Man by Primo Levi
The Truce by Primo Levi
If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
Eichmann In Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt
Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File by Alan Levy
Long Shadows: Truth, Lies And History by Erna Paris
Stalingrad by Anthony Beever
Child Of The Holocaust by Jack Kuper
I Didn’t Say Goodbye: Interviews With Children Of The Holocaust by Claudine Vegh
The Avengers: A Jewish War Story by Rich Cohen
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: by Philip P Hallie
The Lost Childhood by Yehuda Nir
A History Of The Jews In The Modern World by Howard M Sachar