I loathe the widespread critical overuse of the word luminous. But what other adjective can you use for the illustrations of Peter Sís? Lyrical? Ethereal? Clichés too! Also true! Grr. And another cliché: “A singular talent.” But three Caldecott Honors (for 1997’s Starry Messenger, 1999’s Tibet Through the Red Box, and...

Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued by Peter Sís; illus. by the author Primary, Intermediate    Norton    64 pp.    g 1/21    978-1-324-01574-1    $19.95 e-book ed.  978-1-324-01575-8    $17.48 At the end of 1938, when the Germans invaded the border region of Czechoslovakia, a young...