Most compelling of all is the story of how three teenage girls from Kansas found Irena Sendler's forgotten story and told it to the world. In so doing they helped crack open the silence about the Holocaust in Poland. Their story is an inspiration for students all over the world to do what they can to repair the world, as these teens did with Irena's story.

Praise for Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project

“The story will take your breath away ... and haunt and inspire you, as well.
. . . you don't want to put down the book.”
- 2014 Ben Franklin Digital Award

“While Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project is based on a true story, it reads like a novel. Mayer masterfully and seamlessly weaves together the personal stories of Irena and the students. . . This stimulating book is a story about human decency, courage, and social justice. It will appeal to anyone with an interest in history, as well as teachers of all subjects . . . But it has much wider human-interest appeal as well, due mostly to Mayer’s extensive primary-source research, which includes several personal interviews. He reveals the inner thoughts of the people involved—their joys, struggles, and fears—pulling the reader in on an emotional level early on and sustaining that interest throughout the book.
Through this powerful book, Mayer continues the girls’ effort by telling Irena’s story to a wider audience, and further illustrating how one person can potentially change the lives of so many.”
- ForeWord Clarion Review

“Kansas teenagers rediscover a forgotten Holocaust heroine in this moving historical drama. . . Mayer’s superb novelization of her exploits elevates social work to the intensity of a spy thriller. . . Writing in vivid but restrained prose, Mayer describes this agonizing situation with understated pathos. . . his rendition of Irena’s story has an inspirational power of its own. A gripping real-life tale of extraordinary courage that had an enduring impact.”
- Kirkus Review

“Jack Mayer has done a remarkable job in bringing to life the heroic figure of Irena Sendler, whose noble legacy seems to have reached into unlikely places with affecting and unpredictable results. Meticulously researched, this story has been told with grace and passion by Mayer, who brings a wealth of compassion to his book.”
- Jay Parini, author of The Last Station


“A beautiful story, beautifully told . . at last.”
- The US Review of Books

“This is a story of history rescued. It rekindles our faith in humanity. Every high school student and teacher should read this book. We all should.”
- Michele Forman
National Teacher of the Year 2001

“Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project is an extraordinary story of heroism during the
Holocaust, and its transformative role in the lives of three high school students in contemporary Kansas. It is based on the true but little-known story of Irena Sendler, a Polish Catholic rescuer of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto, and of the young students in Kansas who rescued this history. Jack Mayer masterfully weaves these two separate but intimately connected stories into one larger saga that provides us with a unique lens into the Holocaust and its meaning and relevance in today’s world. It will inspire all who read it, especially the young.”
- Professor Francis R. Nicosia - Raul Hilberg Distinguished Professor
of Holocaust Studies, University of Vermont

“The monument to Irena Sendler was raised neither in Poland nor in Israel, but in the hearts and deeds of young Americans. Jack Mayer’s inspiring book brings to life the true story of high school students in Uniontown, Kansas and a Polish Holocaust rescuer. The teens conceived the theatrical performance called Life in a Jar. Their message was simple: one who goes against evil and rescues goodness, changes the world.”
- Professor Jacek Leociak, Polish Academy of Sciences
author of The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City
(with Barbara Engelking)

“This story of courage, hope, and determination was born in the flaming hatred of Nazi-occupied Poland, was buried and lost amongst the rubble and ashes of post-war Warsaw, was uncovered and illuminated by three mid-western teens and finally, was given wings of words by a Vermont pediatrician, so that it might circle the world and touch minds and hearts with the message that you are never too small or too young to redeem mankind.”
- Steven Koller, MD

I saw the movie" Life in a Jar" and was so impressed that I did my own research on Irena Sendler and also of the Holocaust and put it all together and gave it to the library so others could read about one couragious woman, a heroine.