The nine winners of the 2026 Canadian Jewish Literary Awards have been announced. The winner in the Children and Youth category is The House Across the Street by Adam Policzer (Dirty Water Comics). The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony on Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 2 pm at the Al Green Theatre, Miles Nadal JCC, 750 Spadina Avenue in Toronto. The event is free and open to the public. To register, click here. Learn more about The House Across the Street below.
The House Across the Street is a memorial and a work of love—for his family and for the brave neighbours who risked their lives to save a five-year-old boy from death. Eighty years after he survived the Holocaust in Hungary, 87-year-old Adam Policzer has written and hand drawn a graphic novel telling his gripping story. Policzer’s father had fled Hungary before the Nazis invaded, and his mother arranged to hide Adam with a Christian family living across the street in the city of Miskolc. Policzer is one of the few child survivors who could still vividly remember the Holocaust. The simplicity of his drawings and the language and his candour about the harrowing experiences that a child had to endure will engage young people for whom the Holocaust is distant and remote. It is a harrowing and emotional story beautifully told that will connect with older readers as well.
To see all the winners, click here.