The Sky Was My Blanket

A Junior Library Guild Selection“In his final, posthumously published work, the late Caldecott Medalist tells the true story of his uncle’s travails in World War II-era Europe … Shulevitz’s ominous black-and-white sketches are interspersed throughout. Quietly potent and intensely empathetic.” –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“In this stirring illustrated remembrance, late Caldecott Medalist Shulevitz chronicles his uncle Yehiel Szulewicz’s decision to leave his hometown of Zyrardów, Poland in the years before WWII … In precise, punctuated language, the author recounts everyday occurrences alongside moments of joyful self-discovery as Szulewicz forges his own path. Throughout, Shulevitz touches on historical events across Europe, their effect on the protagonist, and the youth’s own impact on the situations and people around him through the eyes of an adventurous wanderer who always followed his heart.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Evocative black-and-white illustrations accentuate these tales marked with fascinating details, bravery, and a string of luck in dark times … A brilliant and touching conclusion to Shulevitz’s esteemed career.” –Booklist, starred review

“It’s easy to ‘hear’ the voice of Yehiel in the straightforward and engaging narrative.” –The Horn Book

Uri Shulevitz (1935-2025) was a Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator and author. He was born in Warsaw, Poland, on February 27, 1935. He began drawing at the age of three and, unlike many children, never stopped. The Warsaw blitz occurred when he was four years old, and the Shulevitz family fled, as chronicled in his acclaimed memoir Chance: Escape from the Holocaust. For eight years they were wanderers, arriving, eventually, in Paris in 1947. There Shulevitz developed an enthusiasm for French comic books, and soon he and a friend started making their own. At thirteen, Shulevitz won first prize in an all-elementary-school drawing competition in Paris’s 20th district. In 1949, the family moved to Israel, where Shulevitz worked a variety of jobs: an apprentice at a rubber-stamp shop, a carpenter, and a dog-license clerk at Tel Aviv City Hall. He studied at the Teachers’ Institute in Tel Aviv, where he took courses in literature, anatomy, and biology, and also studied at the Art Institute of Tel Aviv. At fifteen, he was the youngest to exhibit in a group drawing show at the Tel Aviv Museum. At 24 he moved to New York City, where he studied painting at Brooklyn Museum Art School and drew illustrations for a publisher of Hebrew books. One day while talking on the telephone, he noticed that his doodles had a fresh and spontaneous look-different from his previous illustrations. This discovery was the beginning of Uri’s new approach to his illustrations for The Moon in My Room, his first book, published in 1963. Since then he has written and illustrated many celebrated children’s books. He won the Caldecott Medal for The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, written by Arthur Ransome. He has also earned three Caldecott Honors, for The Treasure, Snow and How I Learned Geography. His other books include One Monday Morning, Dawn, So Sleepy Story and many others. He also wrote the instructional guide Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books. Shulevitz’s final book, completed shortly before his death in New York City at age eighty-nine, is The Sky Was My Blanket: A Young Man’s Journey Across Wartime Europe, a narrative nonfiction account of the adventures of his father’s brother Yehiel, who ran away from home at age fifteen, journeyed through prewar Europe for a decade, and ended up a member of the Spanish Republican Army and then the Jewish Resistance in Vichy France.